Redemption and Punishment
by mturner
Summary: This story is set in a Charmed AU of sorts, ok just what pops into my head. Anyways it is about Cole and how he deals with certain issues which I will not ruin in the summary. Lots of angst and probably depressing to most, and no happy ending in sight.
1. Prologue and Chapter 1

_**From the author:**_

_**This story is based upon the characters of Charmed especially one Cole Turner. I do not own these characters and am just borrowing them for my own creative purposes. This story takes place sometime in the future, everything that happened after and including Cole's death in season five never happened in this story. Cole and Phoebe got back together after he came back from the wasteland and had a daughter, named Amber, shortly after. That is all the back-story you are going to get the rest will come to light when it comes to light. **_

_**This story is told thru a series of letters or journal entries if you like, that Cole is writing to his estranged daughter. The circumstances that led to them being estranged will come later as will the reasons as to why he is writing them. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy. **_

_**So it goes,**_

_**Mandy Turner**_

_**It is only after we lose everything that we are free to do anything…**_

_**

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-Prologue- **_

_**It was eight years ago when it happened, when my life was changed forever. She was the most beautiful person I had ever met, and not just physical beauty she had a soul that emanated beauty. I can still remember everything about her, every little facet of her personality, every wrinkle or bump on her body, everything that made me fall in love with her so many years ago. She taught me everything about love and life, how to live as a human, that I was even capable of loving and being loved. She turned my heart which so long ago had become cold into a radiating prism of pure love. Phoebe was my whole life my reason for being and everything I always wanted. **_

_**Her family too, they were my family or at least I like to think of them that way. Piper the mother I never had, and maybe never wanted always nagging me but in a loving way. She understood mine and Phoebe's relationship, she didn't condone it but she understood after all it was somewhat like what she and Leo shared. It was epic, nothing could come between us, or so I thought, how naïve was I. **_

_**Paige, I don't think ever really liked me but we agreed to disagree and after a while we became like brother and sister. Arguing, bickering and on occasion working together to piss off Piper. **_

_**Leo, god he could be so righteous sometimes but I knew he meant well. He loved his family put all their needs above his own and that is the one quality I always admired in him. I would like to say we were friends but that might be stretching it a little too far. Friends are supposed to understand when you have to do something, not judge and Leo god help him always judged me. **_

_**But these people were my family for better or worse and the only family I have ever known, the only people I ever cared about until you came into my life. There are reasons I can't be there for you now, and I hope someday you will understand and maybe can even forgive me for. Scratch that I don't expect your forgiveness because I can not forgive myself. So I left you with this family hoping that they could raise you right and with love, something I never had. I couldn't be a father to you; you would not have wanted me as a father. Let's face it I am a demon not someone to be proud of not someone to bring to school and show off to your friends. So, that is why I am writing this to you, a diary of sorts I guess, so you can understand why I did what I did, and know your mother like I did and know that no matter what I have always loved you and been there in the shadows watching to make sure you are safe from harm so that the same fate would not come to you that has come to everyone else who I ever loved.**_

_**With much love and regret,**_

_**Cole Turner**_

_**

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-Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End- **_

_**Every true story ends in death and this is no exception. But that will come later first I guess the best place to start is in the beginning.**_

_**I met your mother, my future wife a long time ago, I guess it was eleven years now. Unlike other fairytales it was not love at first sight. She was a member of the infamous charmed ones, the greatest force for good ever known sworn to protect the innocents a thorn in the side of demons everywhere. **_

_**I am hoping that you will understand this, that Piper and Leo have told you some things about good and evil. I know the charmed ones are no more and demons don't attack the manner anymore but hopefully they have told you some things about your past. But I would not be surprised if they just told you about your mother's past and not mine, a demon heritage is not something to be proud of.**_

_**Like I was saying your mother was a charmed one and I…I was a demon, a killer, a mercenary who killed for money, fame, and power. I was sent by the triad to kill the charmed ones, to score one of the greatest victories for demons everywhere. **_

_**At first I did my job, learned their weakness and used them quite proficiently to exploit the charmed ones. I started to seduce the youngest Phoebe the most naïve or so I thought. It was working I had her right were I wanted her, ripe for the picking. If I could have killed her than the charmed ones would be no more, without the power of three there would be no charmed ones. But something in me was changing I couldn't explain it; I had never experienced feelings like this before. Every time I had the chance to kill her I couldn't do it and I couldn't explain why, so I tried to runaway from her, from my feelings, and from myself. I just couldn't stand to sit around and watch her and her sisters die even if it was at my hand, on my orders; I guess I have always been a coward.**_

_**As the charmed ones bond as sisters broke Phoebe came to me crying and I sent her home to fix it, to put back what never should have been broken. Then in a single confusing night everything changed. The demon possessed me and went after the charmed ones. It was vanquished with ease but not until the charmed ones had cut off a piece of Belthezar flesh, Belthezar was me Cole Turner in my demonic form that I will delve into later for now lets just stick to how me and Phoebe met. With a piece of my flesh the witches could brew a vanquishing potion and that is exactly what they did.**_

_**After bleeding for some time and noticing the gaping wound in my stomach I felt myself being pulled down deep down into the underworld. I knew who it was only the Triad would want to see me and it was not for a congratulatory chat, it was to execute me. Pain, sorrow and regret were the only emotions coursing thru my body; the words of the Triad were nothing more than that words without meaning. The last thing I heard was one of the dark hooded figures say, "you are allowed to make one final statement," and I knew exactly what that statement was. **_

_**Anger rose from my body all the times of being used by others came boiling up to the surface all the emotions I was not allowed to feel as a demon all the torment that my childhood in the underworld brought me raged through my body. It was like a haze feel upon my head and when the fog finally cleared all that was left was me, like always after everything is done it is just me, alone forever alone. **_

_**I had killed the Triad and I felt no remorse for it all I felt was peace. I thought then that I had done what I had to, I had survived like I always had before, and nobody could doubt that I was a survivor. And just as suddenly as the peace had come the realization that I was now a fugitive came even faster. I was to spend the rest of my life on the run, running from the only family I had ever known. That is a funny thing considering demons as your family. I guess I did not really even know what that word meant at the time family, uh guess I still don't really know what it means. **_

_**But the last thought that crossed my mind was of her, the woman I had given up it all for, the women I had gone against everything I ever knew to be true for, the women I loved….oh hell I love her, can I love, is it possible, LOVE, I don't even know what that means, so many questions whirled around inside my head, but I was about to find out the hard way that love hurts. **_

_**In one last scream of agony and regret I left my old world behind and started a new voyage, a voyage that would take me into a place I had never been before, a part of my soul that had never seen the light would now show through…my humanity was about to make its grand appearance.**_

_**Like William Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar, "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life. Is bound in shallows and in afloat; and we must take the current when it serves, or lose the ventures before us." I was about to take the current and ride it into that wonderful unknown, the future.**_

_**I was hurt and on the run but I knew it would not be long before I could see her, I just had to find someplace to heal, to get my strength and my courage up, so I could confront her. She did not know my secret and I hoped she would never have to know, but hope is just that hope, the fact is everything comes to light sooner or later…and my secret was about to be revealed for better or worse.**_

_**This is all I will leave you with for now, someone is close and I have to move fast. So for now you know how and why your mother and I met, next I will tell you how we feel in love and then how that love was violently ripped out of our grasp. Until next time my darling…**_

_**Looking back and never ahead it hurts less that way,**_

_**Cole Turner**_

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**_Please review and let me know if this sucks or I should keep writting this is my first try at this stuff so be kind, but if you can't be kind at least be honest..._**

**_Thanks,_**

**_Mandy_**


	2. Chapter 2

_**-Chapter 2: One Perfect Moment-**_

_**Most of our life is a series of images. They pass us by like towns on the highway. But sometimes, a moment stuns us as it happens. And we know that this instant is more than a fleeting image. We know that this moment…every part of it…will live on forever.**_

_**The moment your mother and I realized our love for one another was a moment like this, a moment that will live on forever.**_

_**After I was injured in the fight with the witches and after I had killed the Triad, I was at my apartment recuperating trying to gain back what little strength I could. Prepared to run again from the bounty hunters that the Source had sent after me but I wasn't prepared for what happened next.**_

_**The Source, the Source of what you may ask well simply the Source of All Evil. He was the ruler of the underworld the ultimate power for evil. It was the Source himself who had set the bounty upon my head, upon on the head of a traitor to his own kind, a betrayer of demons everywhere. That is what I had become a traitor, I guess there are worse things to be but now I was lost and confused with no where to run and no one to turn to. I couldn't go home to the underworld, unless I was prepared to serve my head up on a silver platter to the Source. I couldn't go to Phoebe she didn't yet know what I really was, a demon and not just any demon. I couldn't let her find out she would never understand all she would see was distrust, and she would be right. Not only had I betrayed the Source but I had also betrayed her, my Phoebe; I guess that was the only thing I was ever good at, betraying. **_

_**Lying in my bed at my apartment flashing between my human and demon form, staying in my human form took to much strength, strength I did not have and that is when she came to me. I quickly changed back to my human form so as not to reveal my secret. She saw me hurt and bleeding and got scared, she called for Leo to help. **_

_**Your uncle Leo was a whitelighter at the time, a guardian angel of sorts. His job was to look after the charmed ones protect innocents and heal injures inflicted upon them by evil. He was a pure soul one capable of great good, one that was the polar opposite of me. **_

_**I let her call him, I knew he could not heal me whitelighters can't heal evil, but because of my human side I thought it was worth a shot hell I couldn't get any worse and the bounty hunters would be back soon. If I wasn't at least at ninety percent I was dead for sure.**_

_**Leo tried to heal me but only managed to heal my human half and when the healing didn't work, well work completely I knew that my secret was out. Phoebe would know my secret what I had been hiding all this time and I knew that our relationship was over.**_

_**Incidentally at the same time Phoebe's sisters, Piper and Pure before she died that is another story for another time in itself, were working with a bounty hunter to track down Belthezar not knowing yet that Cole Turner and Belthezar where one and the same. About the time Phoebe came to the conclusion that I was Belthezar her sisters bounty hunter in tow arrived at my apartment and the events that followed will live on in my memory forever.**_

_**I took Phoebe as a hostage and shimmered us out of the apartment, this was not to hurt her only to explain to her who I really was and I couldn't do t hat in the midst of all the chaos left at the apartment. We shimmered to the cemetery, a place I knew all to well, a place I would frequent often in the near future, a place I felt at home. It was the place where my father was buried. We had a family Moslem there I guess it was the only place I felt at home, felt a connection to a family that had long ago disappeared.**_

_**When we arrived let's just say that Phoebe was not to pleased with me, her temper was flaring and I understood she had been betrayed, betrayed by someone she let into her life someone she trusted. What is it the bible says, ""Watch out for false prophets, for they come to you in sheep's clothing when inward they are furious wolves." Well this was something like that a false self, my false self but it wasn't false at all it was who I really was.**_

_**There in the dead of night in a cemetery I confessed my true feelings to Phoebe and still today I can remember word for word what that confession consisted of, "That's the truth. I admit everything else was a lie, but not that. I know you know that too. In your heart. This isn't a mask. It's who I am. Who I really am. You have to believe me. I forgot what it was like to be human. To feel, to care. Then I met you. Yes, I've done unspeakable things. But you've awakened something in me. Something I thought had died a long time ago. My humanity, my ability to love." It was all true everything I said to her then; I was tired of the lies and secrets so to the surface it all came for better or worse.**_

_**I guess now would be as good as time as any to tell you the truth about me about the great demon Belthezar the half-breed who survived the underworld when all others had failed. My father was a mortal man, a good man with a good soul who was deceived by my mother a demon. I am now 120 years old, demons live a lot longer than mortals obviously, so you do the math as to how long ago I was born I am simply to tired now to calculate, just concede it was a long time ago in a different world in a different era. After my father and mother were married I was born one Coleridge Benjamin Turner and shortly there after my mother killed my father and took me to the underworld.**_

_**There she gave me up to Raynor one of the finest trainers of demons, the head of the Brotherhood of the Thorn, a brotherhood I would eventually belong to. From the beginning I knew I was bad, why else would a mother give up her son leave him in a place so cold and unforgiving no child should have to grow up that way, but I did and what exactly happened in my youth will remain hidden deep within myself some things should not be brought to the surface, some things you are better off not knowing, no one should have to know of the atrocities that happened to that little boy. That little boy I used to be he was innocent he had a chance before everything was ruined for him, he died very young and in his death I was born Belthezar was unleashed and that little boy failed to live after that. Until Phoebe came into my life, until my heart learned to love again and then a small glimpse of that little boy reemerged.**_

_**Back to the cemetery after my confession to Phoebe I thought for sure that she would leave me right then and there or worse she would vanquish me. Actually a vanquish would have been better, to be dead would be better than to be without her, I had nothing else the only thing that mattered was her. But in that moment I saw it in her eyes I saw a spark it was love and I knew that we were meant to be together forever.**_

_**As the bounty hunter took aim upon me Phoebe saved me, she threw herself into the fight she was fighting for me no one has ever done that for me before. When the bounty hunter turned on Phoebe with a murderous glare in his eye I knew what I had to do I had to kill the bounty hunter and so that is what I did, I did it for Phoebe not to save myself my life was not worth saving but her life was.**_

_**It was only a short time before her sisters would be there so we had to act fast, they would not allow to me live. So we faked my vanquish, my death, so that I could live on. I could not be with her but at least I was alive and I was dead to everyone else. No more bounty hunters after me, no more running from good or from evil I was free to just be me to just be Cole.**_

_**As we parted with a final kiss I knew I could not end it here I had found the one thing I had always been looking for, a purpose a reason to live and that reason was Phoebe and I would never give up on her. I would give her some time but I had no intentions of just simply going away.**_

_**On that night Phoebe did the one thing she vowed she would never do she lied to her sisters, she lied for me. She told Piper and Prue that I was dead that she had vanquished me, and it was a lie she would have to live with for sometime, a lie that I forced on her, a lie that keep me alive, a lie that my life began from, imagine that a lie that lead to a rebirth, my rebirth.**_

_**As happens sometimes a moment settled…and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped…for much, much more than a moment. And then the moment was gone.**_

_**That is the story of how your mother and I first declared our love, the story of how we kept and lost that love over and over again will have to wait for another time. Just remember this my child without love we are nothing, without love there is no reason for our existence without love we shall all perish into loneliness.**_

_**Lost in memories and lost in love,**_

_**Cole Turner**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Ok so here is Chapter 3, again I hope everybody likes this story. Sorry about having to go into the past, but certain things have to be explained before Cole's daughter can know about the present and the future. Ok so that is really confusing, just know this we must first travel thru the past before we can reach the future...**_

_**Again thanks for reading, and if you want send me a review,**_

_**Mandy Turner**_

_**

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-Chapter 3: A Broken Heart and a Death in the Family-**_

_**At this moment, there are six billion, four hundred seventy million, eight hundred eighteen thousand, six hundred seventy one people in the world. Some…are running scared. Some…are coming home. Some tell lies to make it through the day. Others are just not facing the truth; some are evil men, at war with good. And some are good, struggling with evil. Six billion people in the world-six billion souls. And sometimes…all you need is one. And that one soul for me was Phoebe. Just me and Phoebe everything else falls away.**_

_**In time I had came back into Phoebe's life I had proven to her and her sisters that I could be good that I was worthy of a second chance. I suppressed my demonic heritage and lived my life as Cole Turner. However I did not just sit on the sidelines as a spectator and watch, that is just not my style, I fought alongside the charmed ones fought for good, fought for redemption. I knew that I could not change my past but I could change my future, I could be everything that Phoebe wanted me to be, I could be good.**_

_**We lived in peace for months or as much peace as could be had in the Halliwell Manor. Piper and Leo were married, which is only right a love like theirs should not go undeclared and I was there at the ceremony, me finally apart of a real family. We fought demons, we fought each other but in the end we were family.**_

_**Tennessee Williams once wrote: "We all live in a house of fire-no fire department to call-no way out. Just the upstairs window to look out of-while the fire burns the house down…with us trapped, locked in it". And that is exactly how I felt the first time mine and Phoebe's love was put to the test. Trapped, like watching a movie watching someone else's life play out right in front of you but knowing that it was your life on the screen and there was not a damn thing you could do to change any of it, because the movie no matter how much you fast forward or rewind always turns out the same in the end, I guess it would be called destiny for lack of a better term.**_

_**The Brotherhood of the Thorn had resurfaced and was in plans for something big. I volunteered to go undercover to infiltrate the brotherhood. I knew it was potential suicide but that did not matter I would lay my life down a hundred times just to protect Phoebe and her family. So I went into the fire and I got burned.**_

_**The Brotherhood's plans were foiled but getting out was not as easy as it seemed. I had to pretend even after the fray that I was still a member, all to simply just escape with my life. While going back just to get out Raynor, my old mentor and a father figure of sorts to me, ambushed me from behind with a energy ball and from there dared to do the one and only thing he could to turn me back to evil. His goal was to simply crush Phoebe's trust in me knowing that by doing this I would lose my only foothold that was keeping me on the side of good. I would finally come back home to my brothers, the same brothers that I had betrayed.**_

_**In the end it was the death of a witch that cost me everything, a low level witch, a witch who meant nothing to the fight between good and evil, she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It all happened in the attic of the manor where so many of these types of events happened. **_

_**Again everything seems to be in a haze, I was not myself Raynor had put some sort of spell on me. I fought so hard, for Phoebe, for myself but in the end it was to much and when all the dust had settled the witch was dead. Phoebe had seen the whole thing the death of a witch by my hand and to Phoebe there was nothing worse than that. I begged her to give me the potion she had brewed to strip my powers so I could be fully human so I could be good again. I begged her to save me, but she simply told me to save myself. Huh save myself how the hell was I supposed to do that when everything I was and knew was because of her? I thought love could conquer all but I guess I was wrong betrayal is not covered under that illusive word.**_

_**Everyone has a touchstone. A last line of defense against the mayhem and sorrow of this world. The thing about your touchstone, you come to depend on it. No matter whether you set out to or not. But not even your own personal rock of Gibraltar is permanent. The rock has her own needs to think of. And just because you want someone to stick around, it doesn't mean she will. Phoebe had decided that I was not worth sticking around for and that was that for the moment anyway.**_

_**So feeling hurt and abandoned I did the only thing I could I shimmered away back into the underworld back into the life I had once lived, the life I had given up for her, the life I wish I never had to go back too. And when I got back to the underworld the first thing I did was kill the one thing that stood in my way the one thing that made Phoebe not love me anymore, I killed Raynor. To tell you the truth I liked it, I liked the adrenaline rush the pure animal instinct and power that comes with taking another's life, it was easy and it felt right and right there in that moment I knew I was evil and only one thing would change that, Phoebe's love but that was gone or at least I thought it was.**_

_**During the weeks I was apart from Phoebe my heart broke, I tried everything to change the way I felt, to deny my feelings to forget her but nothing worked. But as it turned out it was a demon who had torn us apart and it was a demon that would bring us back together.**_

_**It was not to long after that the charmed ones were exposed to the world, magic was on the six o'clock news for all to see and then my help was needed again. I was given yet another chance to change things to help my family once again. So I went to the Source and struck a deal, he would turn back time to erase the fact that magic had been exposed if Phoebe would stay in the underworld. She said yes but I knew it was not for me, see Piper had been shot and was dying and this was the only way to save her to reverse time, thus Phoebe stayed for her not me.**_

_**In the end time was reset and me and Phoebe escaped the underworld back into the mix of humanity, Piper was alive but not everything always works out the way you think. Prue was dead at the hands of the demon Shax, killed before me or Phoebe could warn them of the attack. On that day Phoebe lost her sister but I gained my love back. It was a bitter sweet time and a sorrow that we would all have to live with for the rest of our lives. Always second guessing ourselves doubting if the right decisions were made, could things have been changed, questions that can never be answered and are never meant to be. See each one of us could have done something different that day to change how the events played out, Me, Piper, Leo, Phoebe and even Prue all made decisions, decisions that we will have to live with and yes we all have regrets, regrets that will be buried deep within ourselves never to see the light of day.**_

_**Stephen King once wrote: "Time takes it all…whether you want it to or not…time takes it all, time bears it away…and in the end…there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness…and sometimes we lose them there again." In the darkness that followed Prue's death I found Phoebe and inevitably I lost her there again. **_

_**That is all for now my dear, I can not take the pressure of the memories any longer they swell up inside of my head and I must take leave and go somewhere to clear my thoughts some where I can be alone, just remember don't lose yourself in the darkness, scratch and claw your way to the light.**_

_**Reflecting on the past and swimming in the darkness,**_

_**Cole Turner**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**-Chapter 4 The Past Always Comes Back-**_

_**Robert Frost once said, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." And this was how it was for all of us after Prue's death, life simply went on, we mourned, we grieved, we struggled with the truth, yearned to know what it all meant but in the end we all simply just moved on.**_

_**It was not long after Prue's death that Paige arrived into our lives as the half-sister the charmed ones never knew. She struggled at first to come to terms with who she was a powerful witch plus half whitelighter, what a combination. But as time progressed we all fell into our respected places in the family. Battles were fought and won relationships grew and so did trust. Phoebe and me were at our best during this time; we came together as one, one single unit, loving, caring and understanding. We were everything to each other, there was no me without her and no her without me, we were simply in love.**_

_**The more things change, the more they stay the same. I'm not sure who the first person was who said that, probably Shakespeare or maybe Sting. But at that moment in time it was the sentence that best explained my tragic flaw: my inability to change. I don't think I'm alone in this. The more I get to know other people, the more I realize it's kind of everyone's flaw. Staying exactly the same for as long as possible, standing perfectly still. It feels better somehow. And if you are suffering, at least the pain is familiar. Because if you took that leap of faith, went outside the box, did something unexpected...who knows what other pain might be waiting out there? Chances are it could be even worse. So you maintain the status quo, choose the road already traveled, and it doesn't seem that bad, not as far as flaws go. You're not a drug addict; you're not killing anyone...except maybe yourself a little. When we finally do change, I don't think it happens like an earthquake or an explosion, where all of a sudden we're like this different person. I think it's smaller than that. The kind of thing most people wouldn't even notice unless they looked really, really close. Which, thank God, they never do. But you notice it. Inside you, that change feels like a world of difference, and you hope that it is... That this is the person you get to be forever. That you'll never have to change again.**_

_**That is what was happening to me I was changing for the better, getting to finally be the person I was meant to be. Don't be fooled change is hard if it wasn't people would change all the time. It was a normal day like any other in the Halliwell manor when I was changed not willingly into something I had always wanted to be but not prepared for in the least, I was to become human a pure human no powers. This was probably the scariest change of my life.**_

_**There was a woman who interfered with the charmed ones during a vanquish, she was seeking revenge upon the demon that had killed her husband. Only later did she find out that the demon was me not the one she originally sought out. And in one fleeting afternoon I was forced to face my past, a past I had long ago put behind me.**_

_**This woman wanted vengeance for the death of a man I don't even remember killing, there were so many names and faces, they all start to blur together after awhile and all that is left is regret. That is the bad thing about having a conscience, other demons could kill without mercy and just forget about it, but not me I was cursed to forever remember what I had done who I had been. The pain I had caused others would always loom heavy over my head, there are lots of things you can run from but your past is not one of them it will always catch up to you eventually so the only thing to do the way I see it is to face it with your head held high.**_

_**In the end the demon was vanquished, the woman had her vengeance and I was left with no powers, Balthazar had been stripped away from me and the only thing left was Cole Turner a man and nothing more.**_

_**What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gages and dials and registers? And we can read only a few and those perhaps not accurately. This is how I felt being human, frightened not knowing how to be human. The worst part was relying on the sisters for protection and not being able to go after the demons myself something I had taken great pleasure in, to be completely helpless was a scary thought.**_

_**It's been said that seeing is believing but the fact is, we all have our blind spots. Sometimes we recognize them ourselves. Sometimes others recognize them for us. Distance has a way of distorting the things we see. But what appears as an obstacle may in fact be an opportunity. The trick is having enough faith to carry through. Michelangelo said the best way to judge the essential elements of a sculpture is to throw it down a hill and the unimportant pieces will break away. Sometimes life is like that. It tosses us down a hill. But when we reach the bottom and only the important things are left, that's when our vision clears. That's when we hold on tight to what we know, while hope stirs inside us. It's all a matter of perspective.**_

_**After being tossed down the hill into humanity and all of the parts of me that were not important in the first place stripped away I was left with the only thing that still mattered, Phoebe. I had asked her to marry me, actually I asked her several times, and eventually she said yes. I still remember the exact words I said to her, "I come to you, as a man, nothing more nothing less; to ask will you be my wife." It is funny you know how we can forget almost everything and still remember word for word the things we say in the most important and profound moments of our lives. It was the happiest moment in my life, to know that we would forever be united in marriage. It was a dream I never thought would come true and it was a dream that did not exactly come true the way it was meant to.**_

_**So I leave you now my dear with this glimpse of happiness because ahead of us is the worst part of mine and Phoebe's life together. Remember this my dear, "You won't find the answers by looking to the stars. It's a journey you'll have to take by looking inside yourself. You must write your own destiny…"I think superman's dad said that, I am not sure. Look inside yourself the answers are there, and use those answers to write your own path thru life, do not let others write that path for you.**_

_**Walking the road less traveled,**_

_**Cole Turner**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**-Chapter 5: A Puppet on a String-**_

_**Katherine Anne Porter once said; "There seems to be a kind of order in the universe…in movement of the stars and the turning of the Earth and the changing of the seasons. But human life is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own right and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own." The day my life became not mine anymore, I took a stance, a stance I paid dearly for and in some ways a stance I am still paying for.**_

_**The Source was zeroed in on the charmed ones; crazy with the thoughts of being vanquished so he did the only thing he could he unleashed the hollow to wreak its havoc upon the magical community. The hollow consumed powers all powers good or evil the Source planned to use the hollow to absorb the powers of the charmed ones and than kill them with those powers. But unleashing the hollow was a big mistake, forbidden even, good and evil had to work together to banish the hollow back to where it belonged.**_

_**How I fit into this crazy mess you might ask, well the Seer an evil lady summoned me to the underworld and told me I could save my beloved Phoebe and her sisters. All I had to do was take in the hollow myself and than absorb the Source's powers so the sisters could vanquish him, sounds easy right, yeah that is what I thought too.**_

_**So I took in the hollow to save Phoebe and the Source was vanquished, which might I add was the greatest victory in the long history of the charmed ones. After the vanquish good and evil magic had to come together to put the hollow back where it belonged. But something wasn't right, the Source's powers had to go somewhere after he was vanquished and that somewhere was into me, to fill the void.**_

_**The void had been there since I had lost my demonic half, screaming to be made whole. For me it was like if someone cut off your arm you know it is gone but sometimes you still feel it or sometimes it still itches in the dead of night, my body still itched for powers. The Seer knew this all along that if I helped vanquish the Source I would become the new Source. Ironic isn't it, me the great betrayer brought down by what betrayal.**_

_**At first I was confused, I didn't really understand what was happening to me but I knew it wasn't good. Charles Bakowski once wrote; "there will always be something to ruin our lives. It all depends on what or which find us first. You're always ripe and ready to be taken." And after everything I had lived through at that moment I was ripe for the taking blinded by my love for Phoebe, blinded by the belief that I could just live as a human without the interference of magic, blinded by my own naïve stupidity.**_

_**In the beginning I tried to fight it, to tell Phoebe that something was wrong but the Source wouldn't let me. It was like he had a choke hold on me keeping me from speaking keeping me from showing Phoebe the truth. It is still a mystery to me that Phoebe didn't notice the change in me, I thought we were closer than that but I guess I never really let her in enough so she would notice little changes like that. Eventually a cloud came down upon my soul and the Source took control of my body, my thoughts, and eventually my soul. The only thing that remained of me was my heart my unconquerable heart the heart that beat only for Phoebe, the heart that the Source could not silence so his only choice was to love her too.**_

_**There's a particular brand of pit that grows in your stomach when you know you're losing control and there's nothing you can do about it, heavy as granite and moldering. It's the way we're built; I suppose a natural reaction to the unstoppable spin of the Earth below. Forever trying to wrest control of life, work, love, and home. And when we can't get control there... we'll fight for it wherever we can. As if we think we could stop the world from spinning just by being mad. It's amazing how far we'll go just to maintain some measure of control. The world spins a circle within a circle and we grip so tight it makes our knuckles white. When all we really want to do is let go, lose control, fall, and see where we land. Eventually I feel and landed in a prison made up of my own body. I can not begin to tell you what it feels like to be possessed to not be in control of your own actions. Like a puppet, someone else is pulling the strings and you can simply just do what the puppet master tells you to do. I would scream inside my head sometimes for Phoebe to see what was happening but in the end the screams were only in vain, I was trapped locked inside with no way out.**_

_**I watched as the Source kissed my Phoebe, said sweet things in her ear and even slept with her fooling her the whole time, it was the worst punishment I could think of. To watch the woman I loved share all these great moments with me but it was not me it was him, it was that bastard the Source. The worst part was during this whole time I could hear the Source laughing at me taunting me showing me exactly how weak I really was. If I could I believe at that moment I would have thrown myself upon my own sword and ended it all for my sake and for Phoebe's sake.**_

_**I had to watch as the Source married my Phoebe in a dark wedding and than again as he impregnated her with his demon spawn, his future heir to the underworld. Knowing that it should have been me who was standing in front of family and friends declaring my love for Phoebe it should have been me who shared with Phoebe the pure joy of knowing that you have brought new life into this world. It was like the Source had spit in my face and crushed all my dreams and in crushing my dreams crushed Phoebe's as well. To know all these things were happening and not able to stop them to be basically a spectator to your own life is a fate far worse than death. **_

_**Thank God or who ever is watching over us Paige and Piper finally wised up to the fact that the Source had taken over me but it was too late. Phoebe had already become the Queen of the Underworld, she was evil killing demons and fighting with her sisters, it was the worst thing that could have happened to her. A girl so innocent so pure so…good taken by evil taken to that dark place where souls just sputter out and die. I would have killed the Source a thousand times over if I could, I would make him suffer every once of pain he had caused Phoebe but alas there was nothing I could do nothing but sit and watch my whole life fall apart one irreplaceable piece at a time.**_

_**Eventually Phoebe came to her sense and vanquished the Source which unfortunately was me. I know it is the hardest thing she has ever had to do to basically kill someone she loved. I did not hold it against her, she did the right thing, I deserved to die and the Source definitely deserved to die. So away I went into the unknown into the great despair of death not knowing what my fate would hold but knowing that no matter what was to await me in the afterlife I had loved and had been loved and my love for Phoebe would keep me alive forever.**_

_**The events that followed my death are a bit of a mystery to me since I was not there so all I can tell you is what was told to me. The Seer tried to steal Phoebe's baby from her womb and succeeded but could not handle the power of the baby. The baby's power vanquished her and a number of upper level demons and unfortunately the baby died too. I guess I should not be sad about the baby I mean it wasn't really mine and it was evil but in a way it was mine it was mine and Phoebe's. Where there should have been love in my heart for my child there is now only a gaping whole that could never be filled, the worst thing for a parent is to lose a child to lose a child you never got to meet, to lose a child who never had a chance to live life, to laugh, to cry, to eat to much cake on his birthday to me it just seems wrong.**_

_**When Phoebe vanquished me I left her a letter at the penthouse and it went something like this… If I'm dead right now, I know it was at your hand. No one else in heaven or hell had power over me. Please don't cry, I was dead before I met you, I was born the day you loved me, and my love for you will keep me alive, forever…and her love did just that it kept me alive throughout the afterlife, which is a story I will tell another time. Oh and what a story it is how your father survived the wasteland to win back the love of his life, it is the stuff great novels are made of.**_

_**You may ask yourself if I regret the things that happened to Phoebe and me; well I don't for the most part anyways. If I could change things would I, no because then I would change the things that made us who we are the things that would eventually bring us closer together the things that made our love even stronger. So my dear sweet child I leave you with these words of wisdom; the important thing is not to be bitter over life's disappointments. Learn to let go of the past. And recognize that everyday…won't be sunny. But when you find yourself lost in the darkness of despair…remember, it's only in the black of night…that you can see the stars. And those stars will lead you back home. So, don't be afraid to make mistakes, to stumble and fall. Coz, most of the time-the greatest rewards come from doing the things that scare you the most. Maybe you'll get everything you wish for…maybe, you'll get more than you ever could've imagined. Who knows where-life will take you. The road is long, and in the end-the journey is the destination.**_

_**Not regretting the journey that lead me back to love,**_

_**Cole Turner**_

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**_From the author: If anybody is reading this leave me a review so I know whether or not to continue on with this story. I haven't exactly wrote any more chapters out yet but I will if somebody is reading this story._**

**_Thanks,_**

**_Mandy_**


	6. Chapter 6

_**From the Author:**_

_**I just wanted to say thanks for the reviews, it meant a lot and as promised I wrote some more. Oh I did just want to say the reason I can get into Cole's head so much is beacause he is the character on the show who would be like me, destined to live a life totallly confused by everyone else around them, no just kidding...well sort of. Well here is another chapter hope you enjoy it.**_

_**

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-Chapter 6: Death is Never the End-**_

_**Love transcends every plane of existence. All you need to do is believe in it with every fiber of your being. This belief is what kept me alive even in death.**_

_**After I was vanquished by Phoebe and her sisters I was sent to the Wasteland. The Wasteland is where demons go when they are vanquished their bodies burn up on entrance and then their essence is sucked up by the beast. Because I had a human soul I was able to escape this fate but the Source was not, he was devoured by the beast serves the bastard right if you ask me. Because the source was devoured this left only me, a simple man alone in the Wasteland**_

_**Octavio Paz once wrote, "solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition…man is the only being who knows he is alone." I don't exactly know how long I was in the Wasteland see time moves differently in other planes, could have been weeks, months or even years to me it felt like years and I knew I was alone there all alone like always, no Phoebe, no one to love, no one to talk to, just me left to reflect upon my life and what I had become. **_

_**I called out to Phoebe from the Wasteland begging her to do what she had failed to do in the past to save me. I didn't really know if she could or even if she would but I had to try anything, to be left in loneliness for eternity, to feel the way I had felt my whole life…alone…for eternity was not something I was looking forward to.**_

_**Phoebe did come she came to me there in the Wasteland, I couldn't believe it. I asked her to help me all she had to do was retrieve the Grimmore and use the resurrection spell in it to resurrect me and then we could be together again, a simple request right. She said no, she could not use dark magic she wouldn't use it not even for me, not for us and then in an instant she was dragged away from me again back to her life of good versus evil while I was left there to ponder what it all meant. I questioned myself, I questioned her did she not love me enough to take a chance on us, and then I realized what exactly I was asking her to do to turn her back on her beliefs her calling, to become something she wasn't, something she was never meant to be.**_

_**So then and there I decided that I would escape the Wasteland and I would do it myself, it was about time I did something on my own, I didn't know how I would escape but I would think of something I always did.**_

_**After some time I was growing impatient with the waiting, I was never good at being patient, the waiting to figure out some way out of that out of that hell basically and then the answer unfolded itself to me. I was tired, tired of running from the beast I had been running my whole life from good, from witches, from evil, from demons and now even in death I was running and I decided then and there I was thru running, I would run no more. So in a last testament of strength I climbed down off of the cliff and faced the beast faced my destiny with my head held high, I would not go down in shame I would stand proud to the very end. Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, "you can not run away from weakness; you must fight it out…or perish. And if that be so…why not now…and where you stand?" So there where I stood I decided to make my last stand and fight.**_

_**Right before I was to face off with the beast another demon exploded into the atmosphere his essence left below for the beast, so I knew the time was now the beast would come for his powers that is when I would make my stand. When I came off of the cliff I absorbed the essence of the demon and with it his powers. When the beast came the powers exploded from my hands like fireworks going off aimed at the beast, with the blast the beast was wounded and in that moment the answer came to me if I absorbed enough powers I could get myself out of the Wasteland, I could do it without Phoebe's help.**_

_**Phoebe had came to me again in the Wasteland to tell me the sisters were giving up their powers some kind of deal with the angel of destiny or something. She basically told me it was over, there was no way she could save me, that it wasn't meant to be not because we didn't love each other but that love wasn't enough and I needed to let go and move on and I simply told her that was fine but I knew something she didn't I knew that this was not the end of us. **_

_**After she left I knew I was not going to give up on us I would find enough powers to escape the Wasteland and I would show Phoebe and anyone else that we were meant to be together. **_

_**In the end I defeated the beast and escaped the Wasteland, I cheated death again, the only being every to escape the Wasteland and upon my return I thought of a poem I had read once before and it went like this: **_

_**Out of the night that covers me,**_

_**Black as the pit from pole to pole,**_

_**I thank whatever gods may be,**_

_**For my unconquerable soul, **_

_**In the fell clutch of circumstances**_

_**I have not winced or cried aloud, **_

_**Under the bludgeoning of chance**_

_**My head is bloody, but unbowed **_

_**Beyond this place of wrath and tears**_

_**Looms but the Horror of the shade**_

_**And yet the menace of the years**_

_**Finds, and shall find, me unafraid**_

_**It matters not how strait the gate, **_

_**How charged with punishment is the scroll, **_

_**I am the master of my fate; **_

_**I am the captain of my soul.**_

_**And this is exactly how I felt I was the caption of my own soul and it was an unconquerable one, no evil could take from me what was mine and mine alone. They could take my body they could take my mind and Phoebe could even take my heart but no one could take my soul, always remember that my child your soul is yours and yours alone.**_

_**The whole time I was in the Wasteland struggling for my existence the sisters were struggling for theirs. A witch hunter had his sights set on the charmed ones and he had them right where he wanted them. He had a gun pointed at Phoebe my dear sweet Phoebe and I knew I had to do something, I couldn't let her die not like that not at the hand of some scumbag witch hunter so I acted, acted recklessly maybe. He pulled his trigger and I used one of the many powers I had picked up in the Wasteland to reverse his and Phoebe's positions so the bullet he fired struck him. Fitting I think really a scumbag shot with his own scumbag bullet. But in that act Phoebe saw for the first time all the powers I had accumulated and that is when I saw it for the first time the fear, Phoebe was scared of me and then and there I knew it would be a long hard fight to win her back, but I would do it I would win her back no matter the cost. As I told Phoebe then, I was not giving up on us not now, not ever and I meant exactly what I said I would never give up on our love.**_

_**George Bernard Shaw once wrote: There are two tragedies in life-one is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it. As far as I'm concerned, Shaw was wrong. Coz you know what? Tragedies happen. What're you going to do, give up? Quit? No. I realize now that when your heart breaks, you got to fight like hell to make sure you're still alive. Coz you are, and that pain you feel…its life. The confusion and fear…that's there to remind you that somewhere out there is something better. Remember that my child there is always something more out there you just have to have the courage to look for it.**_

_**Surviving life and death through love,**_

_**Cole Turner

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Thanks for reading and please review... 


	7. Chapter 7

_**From the author:**_

_**Ok, so here is were the story starts to come from my own messed up thoughts, so I hope you like and please keep reviewing cause right now is when I need it. Feel free to let me know what you liked or didn't like, if I should change something, or something I should add or if you just have any questions about something. Anyways like I said I hope you like it..**_

_**Thanks,**_

_**Mandy

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-Chapter 7: A Love Reunited-**_

"_**With great power comes great responsibility," Spider-Man's uncle Ben said that but it is the statement that would haunt me the rest of my life.**_

_**I had fought my way out of the Wasteland I had came back from the dead for Phoebe, but to her it wasn't enough, that wasn't her fault I don't blame her, I know now it was all my fault and a little of the Sources too. Time had passed and Phoebe was certain that she could live without me, she could move on with her life but first we had to be divorced so she filed the papers. I guess I should have been mad but I wasn't well not really, she wanted to put the marriage from hell behind her. And so it goes.**_

_**I tried to talk to her to tell her that I still loved her, but it was all in vain. See while in the Wasteland I had accumulated a ton of powers, powers I didn't even know I had powers that would make me invincible, great powers. This scared Phoebe because these powers you see were demonic ones and to Phoebe that simply meant that I was evil. The conversation that Phoebe and I had after my return went something like this, I will never forget it. **_

"_**It's not enough, is it? What I did doesn't change your mind about us, does it? Why not?" I was referring here to saving her life, killing the witch hunter.**_

"_**It's too complicated."**_

"_**Oh, don't give me that. If nothing else, let's at least be honest with each other. We owe that."**_

"_**I love you and I will always love you. Nothing can change that. It's just the temptation, it's too much. And I can't take that risk."**_

"_**I'm telling you, I'm not evil anymore."**_

"_**Maybe not on the surface and maybe not even in your heart. But somewhere inside of you, you'll always be. And you can't ever change that. Goodbye."**_

_**So it went, now I knew I had to prove myself to Phoebe to prove to her that I wasn't evil, that powers didn't make you evil they were simply that powers it was all in the intent the way you use them, that whole responsibility thing again. I decided the best thing to do would be to get myself a life and not rely on Phoebe as my entire life if she saw that I could do good on my own than maybe she would change her mind. **_

_**You are probably asking yourself here why I didn't just give up and try to find someone else, well the answer is simple there is and never was anyone else for me, Phoebe was it the only one I ever wanted to be with the only one I ever felt complete with and I know she felt the same way about me, even if she wanted to tell herself that she didn't I knew better.**_

_**I went and got my old job back at the law firm; maybe I could help some innocents and put away some bad guys, ha, if it was only that simple to tell which was which, as we both know it isn't. So I went on with my life day to day being a lawyer and helping the occasional innocent, while Phoebe went on with hers and her life included the search to forget the search to replace that hole in her heart that hole that was there because of me. She dated several men and I let her, sure I could have stopped it, hell I could have killed them all with not much more than a flick of the finger but I knew she wouldn't find what she was looking for out there, because everything she wanted was here with me and in time she would know that too.**_

_**So I would sit in my lousy apartment, go over my court cases, drink to much beer, eat cold Chinese food and hold on to the dream that there was a future out there for me and Phoebe but **__**there are no certainties where dreams are concerned. Some are achieved, but just as many sputter and die. When they do, it's tempting to wonder why you ever dreamed at all. But this was a dream that would not die a dream I would not let die. **_

_**At this time I was using my powers with great limitations because they were dangerous and I guess somewhere deep inside I feared that Phoebe was right that they would make me evil, something I never wanted to be again, so I only used them to protect others against evil. And this was what I was doing when mine and Phoebe's paths crossed again. **_

_**Forget for a minute what the real world looks like. Forget what you know you know because sometimes you need to believe in what isn't exactly there, a daydream of a better place. A storybook fantasy where life is ordered and consistent and tales get awfully exciting before they wrap up nicely for all involved. But who are we to enforce reality? After all, you never know when the angel of good fortune might bring back a page of your book to life and throw a kind miracle your way. Right or wrong, it's always easier to believe in what isn't there. Rockwell himself put it pretty well. He said, "The view of life I communicate in my pictures excludes the sorted and the ugly." He said, "I paint life as I would like it to be."**_

_**On that day a kind miracle was passed my way a page from my book was about to be brought back, that day Phoebe and I were face to face again and now was my chance to prove to her that I could overcome all obstacles that fate had seen fit to place in our way. **_

_**There was a demon of some sort trying to kill a witch you know same old song and dance but this one was a little different, the witch was not alone she had two little girls with her, her daughters I presume and this witch just happened to be a friend of the charmed ones Piper's friend to be exact. **_

_**Well, to make a long story short the demon had caught up to the witch after chasing her for some time and was not really concerned with the girls all he wanted was the woman, not to kill her but to take her back to the underworld for who knows why. Before I could get to the witch the demon shimmered her out but the little girls kept running and ran right out in front of oncoming traffic, in a split second I had to make a decision go after the demon or save the little kids. So I did what anyone would do I went after the kids, I threw myself in front of an oncoming car and pushed the kids out of the way, I took the full brunt of the lick. My body was sent flying through the air and when I finally fell back to Earth the impact was so intense I thought all my bones had been broken. This was scary at the time I did not yet know that I was invincible but after being hit by the car and surviving I pretty much figured it out.**_

_**I got up dusted myself off and searched for the girls, to my relief they were ok, the charmed ones were there and the girls were talking to them over behind a tree. I hesitated at first not knowing whether or not I should approach the group, while I was lost in thought one of the little girls the youngest around six or seven I guess, I was never really good at figuring out how old people were, came up to me grabbed my hand and led me over to the group. Now to you someone taking your hand may not seem like a big thing but to me it meant everything. To have someone trust you so much and a stranger even at that, to trust that you are not going to hurt them to trust that you are good it is unbelievable. **_

_**When I reached the group of women I saw her, I saw Phoebe and she looked at me and my heart ached, it ached to be with her again but at the same time that it ached it also burst with love, pure love with no expectations of anything in return. Now listen closely because this is were the story gets good…**_

_**Now the conversation started, who was the demon, what did he want, where did he go, as so forth. I just stood there quietly not really knowing how I was to interact with this family now that I was presumably no longer apart of it. After all the bickering and arguing about who was going to do what they finally decided that Paige would orb Piper to the underworld to find the demon while Phoebe took the girls back to the house, Leo was apparently unavailable some kind of whitelighter emergency but with them isn't it always some kind of emergency. So everyone was going their own way and I was left standing there, hell they didn't even acknowledge my existence, never asked if I was ok, I don't think they really cared what I did as long as it wasn't evil. **_

_**Phoebe turned to leave with the girls when the youngest stopped suddenly and I heard her ask Phoebe, "what about him" then she pointed at me, "he saved our lives can't he come with us." Phoebe about died but she couldn't deny this scared little girl anything so she simply said, "Yeah, I guess so" she wasn't really to enthusiastic about it. So the little girl came back and took my hand in hers and led me home. **_

_**The second time this girl took my hand I knew she was an empath, that is someone who can feel the emotions of others a very powerful gift but to most it is a curse. So I knew when she looked up at me with those sad blue eyes it was because she could feel the sadness and hurt that was in my heart she could feel how it had been broken, split open and was now just a bleeding wound. I saw my own sadness reflected in her eyes and all she said to me was this, "it's ok, it's all going to be ok now, you will see." At the time I didn't know what she was talking about but a little later I would find out.**_

_**When we got back to the manor the older girl was watching TV, trying to distract herself from the situation I guess but the youngest didn't leave my side like she was protecting me from something, what I don't know but she must have. Phoebe hadn't said two words to me the whole time we were there but I didn't really expect her to either. After a long time of silence this sweet little girl just looked at Phoebe and then looked at me, then she took both of our hands in hers, then she so lovingly placed Phoebe's hand in mine. She took a long look at both of us just sitting there not knowing how to react not knowing what to say or if there was anything to be said, and then the little girl so sweet finally lost her patience and erupted with the truth and this is what she said to the two stupid adults in front of her, the ones who refused to see the truth the ones who thought it was best to ignore their hearts, **_

"_**what is your problem, you love him and he loves you, I know I can feel it in your heart you know you love him and you know you will never find anyone else, your soul mates, so why don't you work all this stuff out so you can start a life together a new life, there is no point in making yourselves miserable, your both lonely and your both hurting and for what, for nothing cause in the end your meant to be together so you will find a way to be together, so stop trying to fight it."**_

_**I had to hold back a laugh as Phoebe stared at this sweet innocent little girl, who knew too much for her own good, with her mouth flung open in surprise. After finishing her speech and figuring she had said all that had needed to be said the little girl went to join her sister leaving me and Phoebe alone in the kitchen. **_

_**So after a few intense moments I looked at Phoebe and then I thought of what Tennessee Williams had once written, he said, "When so many are lonely…as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish…to be lonely, alone." Phoebe was being selfish she had no right to be lonely alone and I was going to fix that so I looked at her, looked her right in the eyes and I smiled, the smile I saved just for her, and I spoke to her for the first time that day and this is what I said, **_

"_**She's right, we can't fight this Phoebe we are meant to be together I know that and I know that you know that too, somewhere deep in your heart. Whatever has happened between us in the past is in the past, it doesn't come back again so the thing to do as I see it is to look to the future and when I do that all I see is you. And if you can honestly tell me when you look to the future, when you picture your future husband, the father of your children, the man you want to grow old with, the man you want to wake up beside everyday, if the man you see in that future isn't me than I will leave here and I will never come back but, if it is me you see in your future then you owe it to yourself, not me, to try and make this work to find a reason to give it another chance. Look Phoebe, I don't have all the answers and I may not always know what I'm doing…but I'll try to make things better. And when I make a mistake…because face it, we all do…I promise I'll ask for your help. I can't do this alone…But if you'll take a chance on me, we can do great things together. I promise, if you believe in me, I'll find the courage to reach for your every dream. I love you Phoebe, I always have and I always will."**_

_**There are moments in life so archetypally perfect that there is only one right thing to say. But as humans, each with our own idiosyncrasies, we may not always respond the way the universe or say, our parents, want or expect us to. It is at moments such as these that we realize that the truth has a distinct cost that cannot be bargained down and at these moments we must choose whether to pay the price. **_

_**At that moment Phoebe chose to pay the price for the truth she chose to take another chance on our love she chose me and finally her heart was at rest because she had finally accepted the truth that she loved me and always would. With one more kiss we sealed our fate we would begin our journey again, we could handle anything thrown our way, as long as we were together.**_

_**In the end the witch who was taken by the demon was saved the little girls returned home and Phoebe had one hell of a time explaining to her family that we were back together, this time for good. **_

_**Now I had a responsibility a responsibility for Phoebe for my family to never go down the path of evil again to not let the powers I had overcome me, to use them only for the right reasons and only at the right times, because if I didn't walk that thin line between good and evil just perfectly I knew that I would surely lose Phoebe and I don't think fate would afford me another chance after I had so many already. So remember my child, "with great power, comes great responsibility." **_

"_**And the little prince said to the man, Grownups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always explaining things to them."**_

_**There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path,**_

_**Cole Turner

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So there it is, let me know what you think please review... 


	8. Chapter 8

_**-Chapter 8: A Decent Proposal-**_

_**Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, "All are architects of fate…living in these walls of time. So look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again." Me and Phoebe started our relationship anew and never looked back into the past, we only looked to the future, a future that would be better for us both now that are hearts were finally together again.**_

_**Sorry, I forgot to mention this before but Piper was pregnant by now with your cousin Wyatt and she was huge, I mean I don't know how big pregnant women normally get but she was well lets just say gigantic. Not only was she big but she was also a royal pain in the ass, Phoebe told me it was hormones or something but I think that was just a cover, so she could be as bitchy as she wanted too, and somehow that bitchiness always got directed toward me. I guess I was paying penance for my demon past but damn the pits of hell would have been better than that, just kidding…somewhat. Yeah, Piper would kill me herself if she knew I had just told you that. **_

_**Ok so after that side note, now back to the story where was I…Oh right me and Phoebe had just gotten back together. So we got back together and took things slow at first because neither of us was ready to rush into anything yet, you know to many ifs and buts and where do we go from here and all that nonsense, look it was Phoebe's ideal to take things slow not mine, but I would do anything for her and if that is what she wanted I would do it. **_

_**I continued to work for the law firm winning a ton of cases and becoming more and more of an asset to the company while Phoebe worked as an advice columnist for the Bay Mirror and she was good. Yeah, it surprised me too I mean she couldn't figure out what she wanted in life but could tell other people what they should do. I still don't understand the human world, why would anybody take advice from someone who gets paid to give it to them and doesn't know the first thing about them. Anyways we both had success and money but the most important thing was we had each other. Look, I don't know where you are at right now in your life sweetheart but let me tell you this just in case you need it later on, money isn't real, it doesn't matter. It only seems like it does. The only thing that matters is happiness and money no matter how much you have can't buy you that. **_

_**Me and Phoebe started our lives again, like we did when we first met, we loved like we did when we were young and naïve, when we knew that love was all we needed. There's nothing in the world like being young and in love. It gives you the power to do things you would never have had the courage to do otherwise. It inspires you to make yourself vulnerable, put your heart on the line. To give more than you can give, to speak heart-felt sentiments you thought only existed in old books and flowery poetry. And it can make you forget everything except love itself, that one thing that makes life worth living, the object of your affection. Inspired by love, we can move mountains, make great changes, do great things. **_

_**So we went on like this for so many months how many exactly I don't know I guess five or six. In these months we laughed, we cried, we learned about each other things we had never known. I learned a lot of things about Phoebe I had never known, things like what her favorite ice cream flavor was, chocolate, what her favorite book was, Pride and Prejudice, what her favorite movie and TV show was, you know little things that people take for granted the little things that make us who we are, the little things that make people love us. Of course being a demon I had no ideal what most of these things were but I enjoyed letting her teach them to me, letting her show me her world. You know that thing about judging a book by its cover? It's true. Sometimes you got to read the whole thing and, even then, you still might not know the whole story.**_

_**After awhile I eventually summoned up enough courage to ask her again what I had asked her so long ago, it almost seems a different lifetime now, I was going to ask her to marry me. This time it would be me and her, just us, no magic, no source, none of that to interfere, simply two hearts declaring their love to one another. I knew we loved each other but still I was a little scared…ok…a lot scared that she might say no and if she did what would happen then, were would we go from there. So I just pushed those thoughts out of my head and decided it was now or never I was tired of waiting around I was ready to make this permanent, to make it forever.**_

_**So, here is how I proposed to Phoebe, the love of my life, the only love of my life. It was a Sunday and that meant Sunday dinner at the manor with the family so there we were with the whole family which was only right. I figured if I was going to do this thing for real it needed to be done in front of the family all of them Piper, Leo and Paige cause not only was I asking Phoebe to marry me, in a way I was asking them all to allow me back into the family, I needed a yes from everyone.**_

_**We ate dinner and it was a magnificent dinner, Piper really out did her self with the cooking, she also out did her self with the bitchy comments. Ok, so I knew that the family didn't entirely trust me so their distrust and accusations were ok but I had Phoebe's trust and that was all that mattered, in time the rest would come to trust me again too. I was about to blow all their minds with what I was going to do next though but first we retired into the living room for some after dinner conversation. It was getting late and I knew that it was now or never so I prepared myself to take that leap of faith and I just hoped that Phoebe would have enough strength to take that leap with me. As the clock ticked on my heart started to beat faster, it was beating out of my chest with anticipation so with one final gasp of breath I began what would be one of the many great moments of my life.**_

_**So there in front of everyone I dropped to one knee and grasped Phoebe's hand in mine, looked up into her beautiful brown eyes, looked deep into her heart, deep into her soul, and I smiled, the smile I saved just for her, then I began to burst forth with the sentiments my heart had held captive for all of time and this is what I said,**_

"_**Phoebe, in all my life I never thought I would find love, I didn't think it was possible, I didn't think that I deserved it and then you came into my life. You showed me how to love again; you melted the frost that had formed around my heart. I look at you and I think of how lucky I am, you're my dream come true, you take my breath away, I can't imagine my life without you. Lets face it I am not the hero that will always save the day and I may not even be what you've been dreaming of, but I will always be the man in love with you. So this is what I can promise you nothing more and nothing less; I will always be there for you, I will do my best to make sure you only cry those happy tears, and though I'll make mistakes I will never break your heart, I'll pick you up when you fall, I'll kiss away your tears, I'll fight away all your fears, and I'll be there for better or worse till death do us part, I'll love you with every beat of my heart, forever and always. **__**Listen, I know it is crazy to ask, and I know it doesn't make any sense because of who we are but that shouldn't matter. If it did we never would have fallen in love in the first place. I love you Phoebe and I don't know where we go from here but, I do know where ever it is, I want it to be with you. So here I am down on one knee with this ring asking you Phoebe Halliwell will you spend the rest of your life with me as husband and wife, will you marry me."**_

_**So there it was I had laid my heart out on the line now all I could do was hold my breath and await Phoebe's reply. I saw her look back at her family seeking their approval, they were all speechless mouths flung open but eventually Piper nodded her approval and that was all that was needed. Phoebe then turned to me and holding my face in her hands tears threatening to fall from her eyes she said, "Yes, yes I will be your wife a thousand times yes; I love you Cole forever and always." And that was that me and Phoebe would be married again but this time it would be on our terms with our own hearts. **_

_**When things are working right in the universe, a loss of innocence is usually followed, in time, by an increase in humanity. Time is funny like that. For everything it robs us of, it grants us something. Sometimes it's a new friend, sometimes it's a better understanding of ourselves. Sometimes, it's just a perfect day. This was my perfect day. So I bid you farewell my sweetheart until next time.**_

_**Remembering a perfect time and a perfect place,**_

_**Cole Turner**_

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**_Review and let me know what you think. I hope the proposal was alright I'm not very good with the romantic stuff but to me it seemed ok._**

**_Thanks, _**

**_Mandy_**


	9. Chapter 9

_**From the author: Well here it is another chapter I hope it isn't to bad. I also just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story, it means a lot, without your encouragement I might not have been inspired to keep going, so again I thank you and hope you like this.**_

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_**There are certain milestones in our lives that give us the opportunity to reflect on where we've been and to look ahead to where we're going. If you're lucky, the looking ahead is as much fun as the looking back. But not everyone is lucky. Sometimes in these moments of great promise and potential, we often wish we could simply stop time, to relish in those final moments of glory and to put off the future for just one more day. We're taught to remember only the significant moments – the rites of passage. In truth, the smallest steps that get us to these momentous occasions are just as significant. Looking back, we see it's not just the high points, but the low points that also define who we are and who we will become.**_

_**It was both the high and low points of mine and Phoebe's relationship that had lead us here to the final declaration of our love. There was to be a wedding, a real wedding this time not that farce that the first time was, a wedding that was a long time coming but one that would have to wait just a bit longer. Piper wanted us to wait until she gave birth before we had the wedding, something about not fitting into a dress, I don't know girl stuff I guess. So we waited about three or four months before we actually had the wedding which was ok with Phoebe it gave her time to plan all this stuff like flowers, dresses, cakes and other things, I never knew that declaring your love was so time consuming or expensive but what Phoebe wants Phoebe gets. **_

_**During those months while we were waiting to get married Phoebe planned our wedding I tried to help once I told her which flowers I liked best but I guess I chose the wrong ones cause Phoebe got mad at me, I don't understand this human stuff at all. It was only later that Leo explained to me that the groom doesn't get to plan the wedding they just have to stand at the alter, it doesn't matter what they want it is all about the bride. I am glad Leo knew that kind of stuff because I sure didn't. So after that anytime Phoebe asked me about something for the wedding I just said what ever you think would be best is fine, and after that everything went smoothly. **_

_**Wyatt was finally born and about a month later we decided to have the wedding. Finally the time was here I was about to go crazy with preparations and what not. So here is how it was all supposed to go according to Phoebe, the wedding was to take place in the manor with grams proceeding over the ceremonies not my choice might I add but what Phoebe wants Phoebe gets. Piper and Paige were her co-maids of honor and Leo was going to be my best man, which was ok with me, hell I didn't even really know anyone else besides Leo. She invited a few close friends who knew about magic like her dad, Victor, and Darryl and his wife and I don't really know who else was there the only thing that mattered to me was that Phoebe was going to be there.**_

_**It was a Saturday around three or so when this whole show got under way. I was waiting in my black tux in front of the windows, which was our makeshift alter so to speak, with Leo beside me and Grams in front. Then the wedding march started with Paige followed by Piper coming down the stairs, they were wearing sort of a blue color dresses, and then it was Phoebe's turn. She was breath taking in her white dress which was mostly like a wedding dress but with its own little Phoebe spin to it. It seemed like forever before she got to me and in that time I took it all in, this magnificent moment. I pondered how we had come to be, how we had been relentless in our love, how we had overcame all the odds, how our love was so strong that nothing could tear us apart, I thought about the stories that would be told of a love that turned a demon good, a love that would rival any of the greatest loves wrote about in books.**_

_**Finally Phoebe was standing beside me hand in hand ready to declare our love to the world. First Grams asked if there was anybody who objected to the marriage. I held my breath, I just knew that Phoebe's dad would have something to say he never really liked the ideal of his daughter with a demon or any man for that matter, but he didn't say anything and so the wedding went on. **_

_**I was lost through out most of the ceremony, lost in Phoebe's eyes so as to what exactly went on I don't know. When it came time to say our vows Leo had to poke me in the ribs to bring me back to Earth. We had written our own vows seeing as the others could not compare to what we had to say to each other. So I went first and this is what I said to the love of my life, **_

"_**Phoebe, our love is unconditional, we knew that from the start, I can see it in your eyes and you can feel it from my heart. From here on after let's stay the way we are right now and share all the love and laughter that a lifetime will allow. You will always be the miracle that makes my life complete and as long as there is a breath in me I'll make yours just as sweet. As we look into the future it's as far as we can see so let's make each tomorrow be the best that it can be. And if along the way we find a day it starts to storm you've got the promise of my love to keep you warm. So Phoebe, I cross my heart and promise to give all I got to give to make all your dreams come true. In all the world you'll never find a love as true as mine." And then I repeated the words that Grams said after her, the traditional wedding vows. "I, Cole Turner, take you Phoebe Halliwell, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part."**_

_**And then it was Phoebe's turn to recite her vows and I was certainly anxious to see what she had to say. And this is what she said,**_

"_**Cole, sometimes I could stay awake forever just to hear you breathing, watch you smile while you are sleeping, while you are far away from dreaming, I could spend my life in this sweet surrender, I could stay lost in this moment forever. Cause every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure. Lying close to you feeling your heart beating and I wonder what you're dreaming, wonder if it is me you are seeing. Then I kiss your eyes and thank God we are together. I just want to hold you close, feel your heart so close to mine and just stay here in this moment for all the rest of time. Cole, I don't want to close my eyes I don't want to fall asleep cause I would miss you baby and I don't want to miss one smile, I don't want to miss one kiss, I don't want to miss a thing, I just want to be right here with you just like this forever." And then it was her turn to repeat after Grams. "I, Phoebe Halliwell, take you Cole Turner, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part."**_

_**Wow, I was impressed with Phoebe's vows to say the least and at that moment everything was right in the world well at least for me it was. Then just as I had become lost again in love, Grams voice boomed over me and she asked me something I don't even know what she asked but everybody was looking at me and I remembered what I was supposed to say when she asked and I said, "I do" followed shortly by Phoebe echoing my words, "I do." Then Grams turned us to face the audience and pronounced us man and wife and said I could now kiss the bride. **_

_**Damn I had been waiting to kiss Phoebe ever since she came down the stairs in that radiating dress and finally the time was here. I was going to seal this marriage with the deepest most passionate kiss I could muster and apparently Phoebe felt the same way, so then and there in front of everyone we kissed like we have never kissed before feeling the passion from one another and knowing that love had conquered all on this day. Then with one final statement Grams said it all, "I now present to you Mr. and Mrs. Cole Turner," finally my dreams had all come true the day was finally here and our love was sealed. As we left through the kitchen to make our way outside where the reception was to be held I have never felt so much happiness in my life, even if I was getting pelted with bird seed and who knows what else.**_

_**The reception was great of course I was still lost in the entire ritual of things like the first dance and cutting the cake and all that but I didn't care I had found what I had been searching for my whole life someone to love and someone who would love me back unconditionally. There were toast to us by Victor, Paige, and Leo but it was Piper's toast that struck me the most. This is what she said,**_

"_**Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always. A promise, like a reward for persisting through life so long alone. The belief in each other and the possibility of love, a decision, to ignore or simply rise above the pain of the past, The covenant, which at once binds two souls and yet severs prior ties. The celebration, of the chance taken, and the challenge that lies ahead, for two will always be stronger than one, like a team, braced against the tempests of the world. And love…will always be the guiding force in your lives. For tonight is mere formality…only an announcement to the world for feelings long held. Promises made long ago-in the sacred space of your hearts. To Phoebe and Cole may they share a lifetime of happiness together and may you never have to feel the pains of loneliness again."**_

_**After the toast it was time to cut the cake had I known Phoebe was going to shove it into my face I might have been a little bit more prepared but alas another thing to add to the list of human traditions I knew nothing about. But in all honesty I didn't mind it and I hope she didn't either when I rubbed it all over her face, kind of funny someone spends all that time to create a cake and you go and smear it all over each other but I sure did have a great time cleaning it off of Phoebe. After the cake it was time for our last dance before we departed on our honeymoon, a few days in a nice and quite bed and breakfast in Vermont were we could be alone away from magic for awhile. The last dance was spectacular I don't even know what song was playing but we danced, I can't explain what happened on that floor but the music played and we held each other close and we danced like no one has ever danced before out there on that hardwood floor, lost in each others arms, lost in each others eyes, swimming in each others souls, it was simply perfect.**_

_**Finally it was time to go, I shimmered me and Phoebe to Vermont and well we did what everyone I suppose does on their honeymoon those details I will spare you my sweet, there are some things you shouldn't know about your parents. **_

_**So for now I will leave you with these words of wisdom my child and know that the world you desire is out there and you can find it for on this day I found the world that I always wanted the one I only thought existed in my dream. **_

_**Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach, check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.**_

_**Remembering a time when everything was right, **_

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Well there it was sorry if it was bad, I am not good at the wedding stuff either so hit the review button I need a little self esteem boost, just kidding. But you can leave a review if you want, until next time. 


	10. Chapter 10

_**-Chapter 10: My Sweet Angel Child from Above-**_

_**When I started this thing I told you that I was writing this for two reasons: the first to explain why I had to do what I did and second so you would know your mother like I knew her. Now while I have some time I would like to tell you about your mother. If someone asked me to explain Phoebe to you this is what I would say.**_

_**She's a yellow pair of running shoes, a holey pair of jeans; she looks great in cheap sunglasses, she looks great in anything. She's I want a piece of chocolate, take me to a movie. She's I can't find a thing to wear and now and then she's moody. She's a soft place to land and a good feeling knowing. She's a warm conversation I wouldn't miss for nothing. She's a fighter when she's mad and she's a lover when she's loving. She's a Saturday out on the town and a church girl on Sunday. She's a cross around her neck and a cuss word because it's Monday. She's a bubble bath and candles, she's one glass of wine and she's feeling kind of tipsy. She's the giver I wish I could be and a stealer of the covers. She's a picture in my wallet and my only child's mother. She's the hand that I'm holding when I'm on my knees and praying. She's the answer to my prayers; she's the song that I'm playing. She's everything I ever wanted and everything I need. She's the voice I love to hear and with everyday that passes I only love her more. She's the one I would lay down my own life for. She is simply everything to me. **_

_**So back to our story, Phoebe and I were married and then we began our lives together. I moved back into the manor with the rest of the family. It was a tight squeeze all of us plus Wyatt but it was ok I wouldn't change any part of it. Life went on pretty normally after the wedding Phoebe still had her charmed duties and I hated the fact that I had to worry about her safety all the time. Our relationship was good not to much arguing or anything, I guess the biggest argument we had was because I left my dirty clothes all over the floor but I politely told her she promised to love me in sickness and health and this was my sickness.**_

_**Anyways like I said life was pretty normal I guess the next big event in my life happened about six months after the wedding. What was that big event you ask? Well, I will tell you it was the day I found out about you. **_

_**Holidays are a time we enact age old rituals, solemn rites passed down from one generation to the next, a time for family and friends and good cheer. They're also a time for giving and receiving, a time for surprises. Some surprises are hidden in boxes, wrapped up in colorful paper and ribbons. Still others we carry inside concealed in our own hearts while we wait for just the right moment to reveal them. **_

_**Phoebe thought that Christmas would be the ideal time to reveal her secret to me, to tell me that she was pregnant. I woke up Christmas morning with Phoebe laying lovingly beside me with a little twinkle in her eye and a lot of suspicion in my mind. She proceeded to tell me she had a present for me but I had to close my eyes and promise not to peak and then she would give it to me. So feeling a little silly I agreed and covered my eyes with my hands. I heard her go into the bathroom and then come back out again, I was definitely wondering what she did in there. She told me to open my eyes and unwrap my present so I took my hands off of my eyes and looked at her confusion written all over my face. She had a bow on her stomach and I didn't know what to make of that. She noticed my confusion and slowly came towards me, reached down and picked up my hand and placed it on her stomach. She looked me in the eyes and said, **_

"_**This is my gift to you, the gift of the future, the gift of knowing that we have made something wonderful together, the gift of our love, Cole, I'm pregnant." **_

_**What!!!! That was all I could think about at the moment but after clearing my head I realized this was the best present I could have ever received, if it was possible I think I loved her more in that moment than I ever had in my entire life. I just smiled and pulled her close to me and kissed her deeply. Then I held her in my arms and we stayed just like that for a long time comfortable and secure in each others embrace. Finally, it was time to go downstairs and join in the Christmas festivities and share our wonderful news with the entire family.**_

_**So, Phoebe was pregnant now and as the months rolled on her belly grew, grew with a new life inside of it and as she grew my fear and doubts grew too. Don't get me wrong sweetheart I wanted you so badly but I was scared to death. I didn't know how to be a father, I didn't know anything about babies or children. I was scared of what could go wrong, what my demon blood could have done to you, I was scared that you might be evil and if you were what would happen to you. I just had a lot of doubts and fears but they were mine and not yours that was not your cross to bear it was mine.**_

_**Then the day came to find out if you were a boy or a girl, the day I would get to see my baby for the first time on the sonogram machine. I was scared about going to the doctor but I knew if anything went wrong I could just use one of my time powers to fix it. So away we went, and when I saw you baby I knew there wasn't anything in this world I wouldn't do for you, I would protect you at all costs and I would love you no matter what path through life you decided to take. I looked at my beautiful little girl inside her mother's womb and knew that these two girls were my life and I would spend the rest of that life trying to make everything perfect for them. I wiped a single tear from my eye and realized that a new baby is like the beginning of all things: wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. You baby filled my heart with hope and I couldn't wait until I would get to met my beautiful daughter.**_

_**In what seemed like only a short time it was now time for you to come into this world, for a new life to begin. Away to the hospital we went Phoebe and me in one car followed closely by Leo, Piper and Paige. After about eight hours of labor you were born, baby you came into this world a fighter screaming your lungs out it was the proudest day of my life and probably the most nervous I have ever been too. Soon enough you and your mother were home with me where I could protect you and shower you with love. So there you were Amber Elizabeth Turner born to Cole and Phoebe Turner, where there had once been something missing from our family it was now complete. The name you ask I don't really know where it came from. Well Phoebe asked me what it looked like when good and evil mixed to create something new and all I could think of to describe it was in the form of colors and if the colors of good and evil mixed it would produce a sort of orange color so that is where the name Amber came from, a mixture of both your parents, a mixture of good and evil. The middle name I don't know we both just kind of liked it and it was about the only one we agreed on so you got stuck with it. **_

_**Do you realize the whole time I have been writing this that is the first time I have written you name? Damn, baby it just hurts to much to realize that your gone and sometimes I think if I don't say your name its not true that it will somehow hurt less, be easier to forget and move on but its not it still hurts just as bad as it did the day I left. I am so sorry that things worked out like they did. So here I am now just sitting here looking thru the window pane just trying to see thru the pouring rain and I still hear your name echoing in my brain and I realize that you can't turn back the hands of time. Don't worry I'm alright, I swear I'm alright, it only hurts when I breath. **_

_**Ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes, Daddy's eyes and Mommy's nose, A wonderful miracle from Heaven above, Oh, little baby, How much you are loved! The first night you were home I held you in my arms and rocked you back and forth. Just the two of us alone in our room listening to each other breathing and that's when I told you all the things you would ever need to know. This is what I said,**_

"_**Now listen closely to what I have to say and if you do this it will help you some sunny day. Take your time don't live to fast, troubles will come and they will pass, find yourself and then you'll find love and don't forget my child there is someone up above. Don't get your lust with the rich man's gold, all that you need is in your soul and you can do this if you try, all that I want for you is to be satisfied. Don't you worry you'll find yourself, follow your heart and nothing else. Darling just be something you'll love and understand. Won't you do this for me child if you can?" **_

_**Have you ever heard an angel breathe, the soft whisper of a sound? Have you felt her breath upon your cheek and watched her chest fall up and down? Have you glanced into that perfect face and thought what a beautiful girl and realized how much you have been blessed? "I Love you more than this whole world."**_

_**You've been the only thing that's right in a lifetime,**_

_**Cole Turner**_


	11. Chapter 11

_**-Chapter 11: Dream a Little Dream-**_

_**Douglas Adams once wrote, "He felt his whole life was some kind of dream…and he sometimes wondered whose it was…and whether they were enjoying it." That is what my life felt like after you were born, like a dream, a dream come true. I don't know whose dream my life was but I was grateful to that dreamer for every minute I got to spend with you and everything they had seen fit to bless me with, definitely more than I deserved to be blessed with.**_

_**So, as our lives moved on I came to realize that a baby was hard work, leaving me with a new found respect for Piper and Leo. There were late night feedings, dirty diapers, and lots and lots of crying. I had no ideal how helpless babies were and it scared me a little, because you were dependent on me and Phoebe for everything I knew she was strong enough but I wasn't sure if I was. But we managed, we lived and learned, well, mostly I learned. I learned that it was much easier to become a father than to be one. But like I have said so many times before I wouldn't change one minute of it, I would still change all of those dirty diapers and still rock you in my arms until you fell asleep.**_

_**I remember the first time you smiled at me, it was like an angel was smiling down upon me you were so innocent and pure it was hard to believe that you had come from me. Isn't it strange the way things can change, the life that you lead turned on its head, and suddenly someone means more than you've ever been able to feel before? A house and its yard turn into a home an empty heart fills with the love of a family and now you know you are complete, that all the pain and disappoint life threw at you was worth it. And at this moment you know that you are the closest to heaven that you have ever been and probably the only heaven you'll ever get to see.**_

_**I can still remember times when the night seemed to surround me, I was sure the sun would never shine on me and I thought it would be my destiny to walk this world alone but now you're here with me and I don't regret the rain I had to weather or the nights I felt the pain or the tears I had to cry so many times along the way. Every road I had to take every time my heart would break it was just something I had to get through to get me to you. Well, I can still recall the days when I had no love around me and it makes me glad for everyday I have with you. I look into your eyes and I know I'm right where I belong and I will always belong with you. If I could I wouldn't change a thing because your love was always waiting for me here.**_

_**I remember the first time you said dada, it was music to my ears and your mother was so jealous. You said dada a long time before you said mama but I told her not to sweat it you have always been a daddy's girl. You loved to play peek a boo with daddy and make daddy crawl around on the floor after you, you thought I was so silly, we played airplanes and I let you do all the things that aunt Piper and Phoebe wouldn't let you do, I let you splash around in the bathtub, I let you play ball in the house and all the other things kids should do, things I never got to do when I was a child. Me and you were inseparable, it's just that I could look down at your sweet little face and know that to you nothing I had done in my past mattered, being a demon didn't matter, you simply loved me for who I was not what I had been and that was the greatest gift you gave me.**_

_**I remember the first time you crawled and then shortly you began to try to walk. Every time you would take a step you would fall, you struggled so hard to overcome the lack of balance in your body, I was so proud of you, no matter how many times you fell you just kept trying. I remember on one occasion we were all in the living room and you were once again trying to master this walking thing, you got yourself up took a few steps than fell back down, this pattern went on for a few minutes and then finally your mother rushed over to pick you up and I grabbed her arm and stopped her. Then I bent down to where I was face to face with you, tears starting to fall from your little blue eyes and I put my hand on your shoulder and this is what I said to you and to your mother, "and why do we fall…so we can learn to pick ourselves up." These words are still something you need to hear, something that can still help you in your life. When you finally mastered walking and then running me and Phoebe were so proud of our little girl. The sound of little feet was music that we danced to week to week. **_

_**It was a great time we could just concentrate on raising our little girl we didn't have to worry about your powers or anything like Leo and Piper had to with Wyatt. See Phoebe didn't really have any active powers except levitation and that was kind of an upper level witch power and demon powers usually don't show themselves until adolescence, so thank God you weren't heaving fireballs at us or anything. Which you probably would have if you could, I think unfortunately you got my temper. You also got my blue eyes and that sinister little smile or probably more like a smirk. From your mother you got her wavy brown hair, her obsession with chocolate and her stubbornness. **_

_**When you were almost two years old, your mother and I decided it would be a good time for your first trip. See me and Phoebe used to just shimmer all over the world anytime we felt like it and in all honesty we were kind of missing the feeling of just being able to pick up and leave whenever we wanted. So we decided to go on a trip, and we wanted to take you with us, I wanted you to see the world to know that there is more out there than what you see everyday. I wanted you to know the wonder of the sea and the beauty of the leaves when they start to change colors in the fall. I wanted you to be able to say you have seen the sun set over the mountains and you have seen the freshly fallen snow, baby I just wanted it all for you and I knew that I could make it happen. Like I said me, you and your mother all took a little trip it was the day before Christmas when I shimmered us to Colorado. I wanted you to see the snow, to build a snowman, and kids should always have snow for Christmas, I wanted you to get to do all the things you would have never had the chance to do at home and plus I loved the snow, I had missed it ever since I had been in San Francisco. **_

_**No matter how old you are, it's hard not to get excited when snow starts to fall. Because, so long as it keeps coming, no one can make you go anywhere or do anything. All life's rules are suspended. The best thing about snow, other than snowballs, is that it has an equalizing effect. Snow can take any object or situation and make it pretty all the same, couldn't care less what's underneath. It's not just that snow makes everything pretty, snow gives us all a second chance, snow cleanses, hiding the sins of all with no prejudices, favor or blame, everything gets to be pure again, if only for a little while, which might be all you need.**_

_**We had the greatest time together in the snow. We built a snowman and you laughed while me and Phoebe had a snowball fight but like everything else our day out as a family finally came to an end and we shimmered back home. When we got back to the manor Piper was a little pissed at us, she was not to thrilled that we were taking you on a trip plus she made us promise we would be back in time for Christmas, which we almost missed. Like I said there wasn't much left to do when we got home except go to bed. So, being that it was Christmas Eve you and Wyatt were sent to bed to await the arrival of Santa Clause. As tradition in the Halliwell manor someone had to read the Night Before Christmas to you guys as a bed time story and this year everyone thought it would be nice for me to read it to you. So, I tucked you both into bed and began my story and after it was over I kissed you both goodnight and set back in my chair until you fell asleep. **_

_**See this Christmas was special for me too. It was the first Christmas with you when you actually had some ideal what was going on. It was also my first real Christmas. As a demon I had never celebrated this holiday, there are not too many presents given to demon children. Me and Phoebe had never really spent a Christmas together either it always seemed to be that we were apart on the holidays. We were together last Christmas but I couldn't really enjoy it I was to caught off guard by everything that was going on, I didn't know how to celebrate the holiday I didn't know all the traditions so I was lost. But this year I got to join in the festivities, I wrapped presents, I trimmed the tree, I got to experience shopping during the Christmas rush.**_

_**I've wrapped a hundred presents and tied as many bows. I've visited different Santa's and heard the "Ho Ho Ho's." I've sat through many reruns but I always shed the tears when Charlie Brown buys the Christmas tree or when Frosty disappears. I've untangled a mile of lights and decorated a forest of trees. I have ornaments and Christmas cards, a supply of reds and greens. I've spent lots of money on gifts and waited hours in shopping mall lines. What I've learned is the power of Christmas is simply found in a child's eyes. **_

_**I saw the pure joy in yours and Wyatt's eyes Christmas morning when you saw all those presents under the tree that Santa had left for you. I laughed as you found the wrapping paper and boxes more interesting than the toys and I basked in happiness as you snuggled up in your mother's lap and took a nap after you had played yourself out. I enjoyed every minute of the delicious dinner that Piper made for us and I got embarrassed when Piper and Phoebe caught me and Leo playing with Wyatt's train set like we were little boys again. As the day ended though I only felt one emotion when I looked around at the people I loved, when I saw you and Phoebe I finally felt complete and I knew then that this was what Christmas was all about and I learned that lesson through the eyes of a child, I learned it though you. While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.**_

_**Later that night Piper was making everyone take family pictures, she took one with all three sisters and one with herself, Leo and Wyatt. Since dinner and throughout most of the night me and Leo had been drinking beer, because the sisters didn't drink, so we were feeling the Christmas spirit. Finally Piper made me, Phoebe and you take a family picture and her and Phoebe decided I would look good in a Santa Clause hat. So there I was with this dopey hat on my head Phoebe sitting next to me trying not to burst out laughing, which only made my face glow red with embarrassment. While all this was going on you were busy trying to figure out how to climb up your daddy and get that silly hat off of his head. You kept saying, "Dada…Santa" over and over until you were screaming, the whole thing was a big mess. When we had the picture developed it was a disaster me looking dopey, Phoebe trying to hold back a laugh and you screaming at the top of your lungs while you climbed up daddies chest. I remember this picture so well, it was always my favorite it captured us as a real family not some posed portrait that makes everything look perfect, this picture was definitely not perfect but at least in this picture you could tell we loved each other. I cherished this picture back then and I still cherish it now it is pretty much the only thing I bothered to take with me when I left.**_

_**I am sorry to say my darling that this is where our happy little story of love ends because what lies ahead of us is filled only with pain, sorrow and regret. It will take us into the deepest darkest depths of my soul and it will answer some of your questions but will yet inevitably leave you asking more. So remember these happy times and hold these memories in your heart for just a little while longer as I will also do.**_

_**Holding on to happiness as long as I can,**_

_**Cole Turner**_


	12. Chapter 12

_**So here it is the next chapter sorry it took a little longer than I had hoped to post, had a couple exams this week, summer school can be such a pain sometimes. Anyways hope you like, hope it was worth the wait and hope it doesn't suck.**_

_**Thanks,**_

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_**It's the winds of change. Sometimes, they are a gentle breeze, a welcome breeze. Sometimes, a brief gust, quickly forgotten, but other times, they are blow in like a foul at devastating gale, blazing a path of destruction that leaves us holding on for dear life. A heart is a fragile thing. That's why we protect them so vigorously; give them away so rarely and why it means so much when we do. Some hearts are more fragile than others, purer somehow, like crystal in a world of glass, even the way they shatter is beautiful.**_

_**The wind that blew on the day that changed my life forever was a devastating gale, and the heart that shattered was the heart of my Phoebe and it was a pure heart.**_

_**It was January a couple of days after New Years when it happened. A normal day, just like all the rest, we woke up at the manor and ate breakfast then I went to work, I was working on a big case which had taken up a lot of my time recently. I had been putting in long hours at the office and working even when I was at home. Phoebe had bugged me about it before, she thought I needed to take some time off and be with my family, I hadn't really been around that much lately and when I was my head was still at the office. I didn't really need the job at the law firm well not for money anyway but I did need it to be sane, it felt good to have somewhere to go, to feel like I was doing something that had nothing to do with magic, it felt nice to be good at something on my own something that wasn't influenced by my powers. Let's face it sitting around the house all day with nothing to do would not have been good for me, eventually I would get bored and then I would get into trouble. **_

_**So, I was at work doing some paperwork for the big case I was working on when Phoebe called me. She was working from home that day, she did that often. Phoebe wanted me to come home and spend some time with you guys but I told her I couldn't and that I would probably be working late, at least till eight or nine that night. She didn't think that sounded like a good ideal I had been working late all week and she wanted to see me. Well, this started an argument between me and Phoebe, nothing big just a little tiff between married people, pretty normal stuff I guess but me and Phoebe had never really argued like that before, I usually just let her have her way but for some reason that day was different. Anyways we argued for about fifteen minutes over the phone, she said I needed to figure out what was really important to me and I said I needed to work and the case was almost over and then things would be back to normal. Phoebe had a temper and I was never one to back down so this fight was pretty heated each of us thinking we were right. Eventually we decided well Phoebe decided that we would meet for lunch and discuss the situation more, I didn't want to discuss it anymore but she didn't leave me a choice. So, she ended the call with I love you but I was so pissed off by now that I didn't say it back, I just said ok I will meet you at one at the park. **_

_**Now here is the question I have asked myself everyday since that day, why didn't I tell her I loved her, I always told her that even when I was mad at her but I didn't say it, God why didn't I just tell her, I mean she knew I loved her but I should have said it, what would it have hurt…it was just some stupid argument that didn't even matter. I have cursed myself everyday, I was so stupid.**_

_**One o'clock rolled around and I was still working on some paperwork, I didn't even look up at the clock, I had totally forgotten about meeting Phoebe for lunch well maybe I didn't forget I was still mad and decided that this time Phoebe would wait for me, I guess I thought that making her wait would be some way to punish her. I should have been at the park by now having lunch with my wife but I wasn't I was still at the office working away at a job I didn't really need. Phoebe didn't even call me to tell me I was late or to bitch me out, she was to stubborn for that she wouldn't have gave me the satisfaction of knowing that she was waiting for me. Around two my phone did ring, I thought it was going to be Phoebe and prepared myself for her wrath, but it wasn't Phoebe on the phone it was Leo. All I could think was why in the hell was Leo calling me at the office he better have a damn good reason for interrupting my work.**_

_**I picked up the phone and not to nicely asked Leo what he wanted. When I heard him speak his voice was soft, he was struggling for words…like someone had punched him in the gut. He barely got the words out when he told me to come to the park, he said something had happened. The park that was where I was supposed to meet Phoebe, a thousand thoughts whirled around my head: did a demon attack, had an innocent been hurt, was there a fight and one of the sisters was injured…all kinds of questions but not a single one that was anywhere close to what had really happened. When I finally came back from inside my head I asked Leo what happened, he hesitated like he was scared to tell me, then he finally just said, "Cole…I don't want to talk about it over the phone…just come to the park right away…please." I immediately started to shimmer there knowing it had to be something big if Leo was this upset about it, but what I still couldn't put my mind around it. I think that I really did know what had happened the minute Leo wouldn't tell me over the phone but I didn't want to believe it, I couldn't allow myself to believe it.**_

_**I shimmered to the park behind some trees so not to draw any suspicion. When I got there I saw all these people in a circle looking at something in the middle, what I didn't know at the time, then I saw a bunch of police cars and an ambulance and I knew whatever had happened there it was bad. Eventually I saw Leo; he was standing a little ways away from the crowd talking to Darryl, the police detective. I searched for the sisters but couldn't find them, my heart started to race and I could feel the fear rising throughout my body, I didn't want to know what had happened I just wanted to find Phoebe to make sure she was ok, to hold her in my arms and to tell her I love her.**_

_**I started towards the crowd of people ignoring everything else around me I had to know where Phoebe was and I figured that since I couldn't see her she must have been in the crowd somewhere. I got about half way to the crowd when someone grabbed my arm, it was Darryl, him and Leo must have spotted me and quickly came to stop me before I made my way to the crowd. When I looked at the two men before me, I saw sadness, sorrow and pain in their eyes but there was something else there to…what was it what was I seeing in their eyes and then it hit me it was fear…but what were they scared of. They both looked at me with these eyes full of fear and then I recognized that look they were scared of me…well not scared of me but scared to tell me something…maybe a little scared of how I might react…but why.**_

_**Neither man would or could speak they just looked at me like they felt sorry for me. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and I ended the silence. I looked Leo right in the eyes and asked him what happened, at first he didn't want to answer me or he couldn't find the words to tell me, so I pressed harder, I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him begging him to tell me what happened. Leo looked at me with his blue eyes starting to form tears that threatened to fall at any moment but he still couldn't find the words. So, then I turned to Darryl hoping he could tell me but it was as if he couldn't form the words either. Getting more and more scared a hundred thoughts whirling around my head I started to ask questions letting my fear get the best of me a thousand questions came out of my mouth all at once: was it a demon, an innocent, did someone get injured, killed, was it one of the girls, are they ok, did something happen to Paige, to Piper. The questions must have rattled Leo cause he finally answered me, he said, "Paige is fine," then I became very concerned for him because it had to be Piper, yes that was it that was why he was so upset, something happened to Piper, hesitantly I asked, "Piper it's Piper isn't it, is she ok what happened, was it a demon." Both men looked at me a little confuse and Leo finally spoke, "No…it's not Piper…she's ok." Why wouldn't they tell me, why was it so hard to say, again I asked, "Then what…what is it Leo." I was getting angrier and angrier, Leo could sense my anger and he put his hand on my shoulder, took a deep breath to summon all of his courage and said, "It's Phoebe." That was it that was all he said.**_

_**I couldn't understand what did he mean, she couldn't be dead it wasn't possible so I asked, "Is she ok, was she hurt, how bad was it, what happened" again a million questions raced through my mind. Leo and Darryl still just looked at me hoping I would get to the answer on my own neither man wanted to be the one to tell me. Overwhelmed with emotion I took a step back caught my breath and again surveyed the scene and that is when I saw it, the ambulance, and now the fear turned into panic unable to hold it back any longer I turned to Darryl. I was screaming at him, I didn't mean to, I mean I could see he was hurting but I couldn't help it I had to know, why the ambulance was still there if Phoebe was injured they would have taken her to the hospital by now but yet the ambulance was still there, why. **_

_**Darryl answered and I wished to God that he never would have, he said, "Cole. Listen…Phoebe was shot around 1:30, she was shot in the chest…the bullet went right through her heart…she died instantly…Phoebe's …dead." I couldn't, I mean I didn't know what to say it was impossible how could Phoebe have been shot, demons don't use guns, what the hell was going on, it just didn't make sense and I told him that, "What…shot…what the hell are you talking about, she can't be dead, I just talked to her a few hours ago she was fine…Leo tell him its not possible witches don't get shot, they don't die that way." I don't know how they expected me to react but I don't think they thought it would be like that. Leo calmly said, "Cole…its Phoebe, I saw her…she's dead." Realization of what was happening finally set in, everything around me became a blur the trees, the people, the cars everything faded into one big blur time slowed voices became distorted and I felt myself falling, spinning unable to grab hold of anything to keep my balance. I just stared into space I could hear Darryl talking but I couldn't understand what he was saying, I just kept staring at him trying to comprehend but his mouth just moved on and on and all I heard was silence. Darryl was telling me what had happened apparently Phoebe had just been a victim of a random act of violence, someone a man they thought had shot her once in the chest, she hadn't been robed or anything like that he just shot her and left. **_

_**I heard none of this I heard only silence except there was something else what was it, what was that other sound…it was a train, the whistle of a train. There were some tracks close to the park and you could hear the train from anywhere in the park. Why could I hear that train? The whistle of a train is a mournful sound, as if the locomotive itself could grow tired of saying goodbye. It is a sound of wars and death... distances of time and space, of families ripped apart, love torn asunder, futures repealed. That was it, the train was telling me to say goodbye that it was over, my love had been torn away from me and our future together had been repealed.**_

_**After standing there in awe for sometime I finally came back for a little while, I had to see her, I had to see my Phoebe, I wanted to hold her to be there with her, I didn't want her to have to face death alone. I started to make my way toward the crowd when Leo grabbed my arm saying, "I don't think you should see this Cole." I was slowly becoming more and more angry, angry at the asshole who had done this, angry at Darryl for not catching him for allowing this to happen and angry at Leo for not healing her why hadn't he healed her. I had lost all patience with the situation and I pushed Leo away and told him quite coldly to get out of my way. Leo went to grab me again but Darryl intervened and told him to just let me go. **_

_**I reached the crowd and pushed my way through the people until I reached the middle. That is when I saw her there lying on the cold concrete so lifeless blood spilling out of her chest. The cops had apparently already searched the scene and taken evidence so no one stopped me when I bent down to hold her. I scooped my love up into my arms resting her head on my lap and I held her one last time, I smoothed out her hair and kissed her forehead. I just sit there for what seemed like forever rocking her in my arms and thinking why, why had this happened, why Phoebe she was so pure, so innocent, so good why would anybody want to hurt her. I could feel the stares all the eyes on me but I didn't care it was just me and Phoebe like always no one else in the world mattered but she was gone there was no life left in her body, no smile on her lips, she wasn't there at all. **_

_**They finally came to take her body away to the morgue and I had to let her go, I didn't want to but they made me. With Piper on one side of me and Paige on the other we made our way to the car, Leo was waiting there to take us home, when I saw him my anger and frustration started to resurface. I couldn't hold it back any longer, I lunged at him throwing him up against the hood of the car, my hands firmly around his throat yelling at him, why didn't you save her, that's your job where were you, and over and over again why didn't you save her. Someone pulled me from behind it was Darryl he grabbed me holding me back from punching Leo in the face oh I wanted to I wanted someone to blame and I thought at that moment that someone was Leo. Darryl told Leo to take the girls home that he would bring me. **_

_**After awhile I began to clam down and sitting there in the car with Darryl I finally knew who was to blame…I was…it was my fault. I should have been there, if I wouldn't have been so busy at work, busy with something so stupid, I could have stopped it, I could have saved her…why wasn't I there. With all these thoughts racing through my mind, confused and bewildered I turned to Darryl and confessed my sins to him. I told him, "It's my fault this happened…I should have been here…I was supposed to be here, we were supposed to have lunch but I was late. It's my fault." He tried to convince me that it wasn't that it was the guy who shot her it was his fault but I knew it was mine and nothing he could say would change that. Another long silence filled the car and then I spoke again, "I didn't tell her I loved her, when she said it to me I didn't say it back, why didn't I say it…she doesn't know that I love her." Darryl grabbed my hand squeezed it and told me, "Cole, look at me Cole," I couldn't I just kept looking down I didn't want to look at him but he just kept on until finally I raised my head to look him in the eyes and he continued, "She knows…she knows you love her, that you have always loved her, that you will love her forever."**_

_**There are things that go without saying, the inevitable nightmare, and there are things better left unsaid. There are things that should never be uttered aloud. And there are things you got to hear to believe. But the ones that stay with us... are the things we long to say... but don't. I will never forgive myself for what happened that day and I will always remember the words I didn't say. **_

_**This is all I can tell you now my dear I can't live this again right now…I just can't…I'm sorry, I have to go I feel like I am suffocating under the memory of Phoebe lying there all I can see is the blood so much blood…I just can't, I can't finish this story now but I promise you I will, I will tell you everything just not now. Here is what I can tell you now: violence doesn't discriminate, it hits all of us…the rich, the poor, the healthy, the sick. It comes as cold and bracing as a winter breeze off the Hudson. Until it sinks into your bones…leaving you with a chill you can't shake. They say there's no rest for the wicked. But what about the good? The battle of good vs. evil is never-ending…because evil always survives…with the help of evil men. But know this my dear, this is a world born of heroes, one person can make a difference as long as your not afraid you can do anything…**_

_**Wishing I didn't have to say goodbye,**_

_**Cole Turner**_

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**_Please review if you feel like it..._**


	13. Chapter 13

_**So here it is the next chapter and becuase I feel like it has been forever again between updates this chapter is extra long, just for you. Hope you like it. And as always thanks for reading and reviewing.**_

**_Thanks,_**

**_Mandy_**

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**_-Chapter 13: May Angels Lead Her Home-_**

_**A distraught heart, it's not like other diseases, it can't kill you, just the opposite, in fact. In most cases, it makes a person feel alive for the first time. Only problem is there's no remedy for it, anywhere in the world.**_

_**That is what I had a distraught heart, I would wish for any other disease in this world besides that one because it doesn't just destroy your body it kills your soul and eats away your insides until there is nothing left.**_

_**So, Darryl brought me back to the manor he wanted to walk me inside but I insisted that I would be ok and he should just go home. I should have went inside, I should have been with the rest of the family, I should have been there to console them but I wasn't, I didn't go into the manor I just couldn't face any of them and I really didn't need anybody to tell me that it was going to be alright because it wasn't. So I waited for Darryl to leave and then I shimmered out of there, I didn't know where I was going but it didn't matter as long as it wasn't the manor.**_

_**First I shimmered to the park, I really don't know why I guess I was hoping that somehow I could connect with Phoebe there maybe some little part of her would still be there and maybe I could still feel the love we shared there but there wasn't anything there but an empty park and lots of police tape. After the park I went to a bar, I thought maybe I could drink away the pain and regret of the day but after a few drinks I could still feel everything. There was not enough alcohol in the world that could have numbed my pain. The more I drank the more I realized that I was alone, truly alone. I left the bar and shimmered to the beach, that was one of Phoebe's favorite places again I guess I was just hoping to connect with her somehow but she wasn't there either. I sat on the beach for about an hour or so and I finally had to leave the people around me were making me sick. It wasn't their fault I guess, it was just that this horrible thing had happened today the world lost a great person and nobody seemed to care they all just carried on like nothing happened which I guess they thought nothing did but I knew better I knew that a good soul had been taken from the world and I knew it wasn't right. I couldn't take it anymore all these people smiling and laughing while I was falling apart.**_

_**Finally I shimmered to the only place I knew could fix my broken heart I shimmered to the mausoleum. The place where Phoebe and I first declared our love for each other, the place where we realized we would be connected to each other forever, the second safest place I knew, the first was with Phoebe. So many of the events that mattered in mine and Phoebe's lives had happen in that cold and dark mausoleum. **_

_**The mausoleum was the perfect place for me at that time it echoed the same sentiments I felt. It was cold, just like my heart had become, it was submersed in darkness the same way my soul was covered in the darkness and it was filled with the spirit of the dead, which is exactly what my spirit felt like…dead.**_

_**So, there I sat in the mausoleum waiting for some sign that Phoebe was there with me but there was none I was just sitting in the dark alone but I continued to sit there, I was not about to go back to the manor, at that moment the mausoleum felt more like home to me, I felt safe there, I could finally allow myself to process the events of the day. Alone in the dark I sat for hours and hours trying to figure out how I was going to live without my heart, Phoebe had taken that with her when she died.**_

_**Finally around three or four in the morning, I don't know what time it was exactly I kind of lost all track of things like that, Leo orbed into the mausoleum. I didn't even notice him orb in, I was to busy holding my head in my hands and wishing to God that it had been me that had perished on that day. At first he didn't say anything he just stood their and stared at me waiting for me to notice him but I never did I was too consumed with my own feelings of guilt to notice anything. After a few minutes he finally spoke, he preceded to tell me how sorry he was that he couldn't heal Phoebe and that if he could have he would of but there wasn't enough time. Still I sat there not saying a word I knew in my heart that he was right he would have healed her if he could, I wasn't mad at him anymore, I understood that much. Leo then said that the girls were worried about me when I didn't come back home and that I needed to go back and be with the family, that it would not just help me but the sisters to if we all went through this together. I didn't say anything back to him, I had nothing to say and I didn't really want to go back to the manor but I knew I had to go. Then I realized that I would find what I had been looking for all night at the manor, I would find a connection to Phoebe because you were there and you were the closest to Phoebe I could get now. So I just stood up and nodded my head to Leo and shimmered back to the manor, I hesitate to call it home now it doesn't feel much like a home to me anymore, a big piece of that home is missing and I will never feel at home there without Phoebe. When I shimmered into the manor I shimmered directly into mine and Phoebe's room cause I knew that is where you would be and you were, fast asleep in your baby bed sleeping as if nothing had happened and I thanked God that you didn't have to feel the way I did that day, that you would never have to feel the pain of getting to know Phoebe and loving her and then having her ripped away from you so violently that you can't comprehend why destiny had seen fit to cheat you out of a life with her. After checking on you I guess the exhaustion of guilt finally caught up with me because before I knew it I had passed out on the bed that me and Phoebe shared…the bed that I would now have to sleep on alone.**_

_**They say that when we lose someone we love we all go through five stages of grief before we can overcome that loss. The first stage of this process is called denial, in this stage we act as if the person we lost is still alive there is no crying or even acknowledging the loss in this stage. Well, I went through this stage, as everyone does I guess, when Phoebe died. The first night I slept in mine and Phoebe's bed alone, the first night after she died, I had a dream about her and this is what I dreamed: we were walking along the ocean hand in hand when I stopped to write I love you in the sand and when I looked up she was standing ten miles out at sea and in a sweat I woke up from that crazy dream. As I reached to hold her in the morning light it was just her pillow that I clung to so tight but for a minute there I thought that it was her. Yeah, for just a minute there my prayers had finally came true and I began again to live oh what I wouldn't have given for just a minute there. Then again on a Friday at around five o'clock I was sitting at a traffic light when an angel walked right by me on my right and the cars all around me just started honking as my feet hit the ground and though I chased and called she never turned around. Oh, the walk, the hair, the perfume were the same and how I wish she would have answered to Phoebe's name cause for a minute there I thought it was her, for a minute there I thought all my prayers had finally come true and for just a minute there I began again to live oh what I wouldn't have gave for just a minute there. That night the stars in heaven were so bright and I could have swore that one of them was winking down at me, for a minute there I thought it had to be her, I thought that for just a minute there my prayers had finally come true and for a minute there I begin again to live, oh what I wouldn't have gave, how I'd love to live, for just a minute there.**_

_**The second stage of grief is anger, this is when we blame the deceased, we blame them for leaving us. I hate to admit it and it kills me to have to say that I went through this stage too. I blamed Phoebe for leaving me, I blamed her for not being strong enough to survive, I know there is nothing she could have done to change the way things went but still I couldn't help but feel that way. I remember waking up one morning, I wiped the sleep from my eyes and as I watched a new day dawning I suddenly realized that she was gone. I begged for someone to tell me that I was dreaming, that she didn't leave me here to cry, that she didn't say she doesn't love me anymore but it was just my imagination telling lies, I wanted her to tell me that she didn't say goodbye. I was in a state of confusion, I hoped things weren't how they seemed, and if this was really happening that someone would just let me go back to dream that she was home and she didn't leave me here to cry and she didn't say goodbye.**_

_**The third stage of grief is bargaining this is when we beg, wish, and pray for the person we have lost to come back. Oh, I definitely went through this stage every second of every day I wished for Phoebe to come back to me. I would find myself gazing at the picture Phoebe kept beside our bed, a picture of me and her when we had first fallen in love with each other. I would pick the picture up and trace Phoebe's face with my finger and beg her to come back to me, if only she would come back to me I would change everything for her I would do anything if she would just come back. Then I would pray, something I had never really done you know being a demon and all but for her I prayed but my prayers were never answered. As far as wishing I did that every time I took a breath, every time my heart ached I wished for my love to come back but she never did.**_

_**The fourth stage of grief is depression they say this stage is filled with overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, frustration, bitterness, and self-pity. In this stage we mourn the loss of the person as well as the hopes, dreams and plans we made for the future. We feel as if we have a lack of control, we become numb and sometimes even suicidal. This stage was probably the longest one for me and to tell you the truth I don't think I have ever really gotten through this stage. While I talk about the stage of depression I will pick back up with the story because most of the days that followed Phoebe's death I was depressed. So, the next step in the process of death is the funeral. I still hadn't really talked to any one yet it had only been a day or so between her death and the funeral but still I hadn't spoke more than maybe two words and I think those words were to you. We went to the funeral around three or so in the afternoon, we all went together I guess it was to show that we were coping or something, I would have rather went alone, actually I would have rather not have gone at all. I sat there as the preacher talked about death and life and what not but I didn't listen, I couldn't listen to that crap about moving on. I glanced at Piper during all of this and she was crying, then I glanced toward Paige and she was crying too, even Leo had tears forming in his eyes but I didn't have any tears to shed. Why couldn't I cry for Phoebe, I had known her just as much as anyone else had more even but still I couldn't find the tears, I had become numb I couldn't feel anything: no love, no hate, no desire…nothing, I had become comfortably numb. **_

_**After the funeral I guess as tradition or something all the family has to stand up in the front while everyone else gathers in a line and expresses their condolences to them. This was the first time I actually could see how many people were there, how many people had been affected by Phoebe, how many lives she had changed. As these people passed me by one by one I realized I didn't know hardly any of them, if they had been so close to Phoebe to come to her funeral why didn't I know any of them. Then I realized all these people were liars, isn't it funny how people you have maybe spoken two words to in your entire life, people you hardly know always show up to your funeral, who are they kidding like someone is going to judge them if they don't come. This just made me mad again they had no right to cry for my Phoebe they had no right to be there. I saw one lady crying hysterically like she had just lost the love of her life, I think personally it was all for show and this made me even angrier she definitely had no right to mourn Phoebe that way like she knew her better than me, she had no right to shed tears over Phoebe. Look, I don't understand why I feel this way but I do and I know you are not supposed to and it is not right but it doesn't change the fact that I do and I think a lot of people have these feelings but are to scared to admit it to themselves. **_

_**Anyway we finally got to leave there and I thought this nightmare of a day was over but it wasn't cause when we got home all these people came to the manor for what I don't know, I really don't know why people do that, to me it is as if they just want to be included in your misery or maybe it is just to eat all your food cause supposedly according to Piper you have to feed them. While all these people, most I didn't know invaded the manor I just sat there in my chair the whole night, I didn't move once I don't think I could have moved if I tried. I still hadn't said anything and I wasn't about to talk to these people, I had nothing to say to them, any of them. So I sat there and blocked them all out no one existed to me at that time, I heard nothing, I saw nothing but darkness and I felt nothing. I know Leo was worried about me he even tried to talk to me but when he could tell I wasn't even registering that he was in the room he tired to get me to go upstairs and lay down but still I didn't move, so he finally gave up and went to talk to Piper. This whole situation was making me sick, everyone was talking away carrying on and some of them were even laughing, they were telling stories about Phoebe but I didn't feel like laughing, I felt hopeless, bitter and frustrated. Frustrated at how all these people didn't even seem to notice that Phoebe was gone and she was never coming back, that I would never get to be with her again. **_

_**One of the neighbors some older lady who apparently knew nothing of magic came up to me and tried to tell me that Phoebe was in a better place now and that someday we would be together again in Heaven. I about lost it on that lady, I wanted to rip her lying throat out, I know she didn't know what she was saying but still I felt that way. See she didn't know that there would be no happy reunion for me and Phoebe in the afterlife; she didn't know that I would never die, that I would have to live with this pain for eternity. I guess that is the one thing that ate me up the most the fact that I would never reconnect with Phoebe again, Piper, Paige and even Leo someday would get to see her again, to spend the afterlife with her but not me I was destined to be alone to live my life without her, without love. Even if I could die lets face it I wouldn't have made it in to Heaven no matter how many good deeds I had done over the past couple of years. Bitter, hell yeah I was bitter. **_

_**Finally I had enough of this charade everyone was putting on and without saying a word I got up from my chair and went up the stairs and into the bathroom. Why, to be alone mostly I guess. While in the bathroom I looked into the mirror that hung on the wall and for the first time in a long time I finally saw myself for who I really was. A coward, who couldn't face this world alone, who couldn't handle the fact that the only person he had ever loved besides you was gone, a coward who couldn't find the strength to go on, to be the man that his daughter needed… simply a coward. In a fit of self-pity I smashed my fist into that mirror trying to destroy the man who was staring back at me and when the mirror shattered into a million pieces I did something very stupid, especially for me. I found myself staring down at this piece of jagged glass, it was calling to me, it was telling me to end all of this, yes I knew I couldn't end it but still I felt like I needed to feel the pain that I had caused so many others . I just wanted to feel anything at that moment even if it was pain and as if someone else was guiding my hand I picked up the glass and cut my wrist and for a second the pain washed over me and I felt like I was alive again, like I was human, I felt something finally but that didn't last to long. Almost as soon as the blood started to flow from my arm to the floor coloring the shinning white tile in crimson red my demon powers kicked in and healed the wound. I couldn't even kill myself right, story of my life it seems, I can't do anything right on my own.**_

_**Piper must have heard the glass shatter cause as soon as the wound had healed she came busting through the bathroom door Leo right on her heels. She took one look at the mirror and one at the floor covered in blood and gasped. She then proceeded to tell me how stupid I was, I didn't need her to tell me that I already knew how stupid I was. Still I couldn't speak I just couldn't find any words but my eyes told her all she needed to know, they were filled with so much hopelessness, so much pain. Piper took my hand and led me into the bedroom, mine and Phoebe's bedroom, we sat down on the bed, we just sit there in silence for a long time before anybody said anything. Then Piper finally broke the silence she told me that Phoebe would be so pissed at me right now and that she would have probably slugged me up side the head. I don't know why but this made me laugh and I told her she was probably right. That broke the ice finally and we sit there the rest of the night just talking about Phoebe, about how stubborn she was but you couldn't hate her for it you just had to love her. After a few hours silence fell on us again, I stood up and walked over to the table beside the bed picked up the photograph of me and Phoebe and held it close to my heart and finally the tears began to fall from my eyes, the tears that I had held inside, the tears that I had not allowed myself to shed and when they started nothing could stop them. I tried to hide my face from Piper I knew she had enough pain of her own she didn't need mine but I couldn't help it I sobbed louder and louder, I fell to my knees and held that picture to my heart and just cried. Piper walked up behind me and sit down on the floor next to me, she put her arms around me and guided my head to her shoulder and just held me there like that for hours and we cried together, we cried for the lover and the sister we had lost. It was really the one thing that both of us needed at that moment someone who knew exactly what we felt. I cried myself out and eventually fell asleep right there with my head lying on Piper's shoulder. **_

_**The next day we had to go to the gravesite, you know where they say a little something then they lower the casket down into the ground, the last step in this process of dying. So, we went again all of us together to the cemetery. This was a little different than the day before because only close family and friends were at the gravesite. We all meet at the church first where they said a little prayer and so on then we all got into our cars and drove to the graveyard I think they call this a funeral precession or something. You want to know how I felt during this moment in time well, I'll tell you; there was this red door that led to the room were Phoebe's body was being kept and all I could think was at that moment I wished that door was painted black, I didn't want any colors anymore I wanted them all to turn black. I had to turn my head until my darkness went away. I saw a line of cars and they were all painted black with flowers and my love both never to come back. I saw all the people turn their heads and quickly look away; I looked inside myself and saw my heart was black. I thought that maybe I could just fade away and not have to face the facts because it's not easy looking up when your whole world is black. No more will my green sea turn a deeper blue; I could not have foreseen this thing happening to her. I wanted to see the sun blotted out from the sky, I wanted to see it painted black, black as coal, and black as night.**_

_**Anyways we went to the cemetery and watched as Phoebe was lowered into the ground never again to see the light of day, I wanted so much for her to open her eyes, for all of this to just be some kind of dream but I knew it wasn't, I knew that she would never again open her eyes. They all said their final goodbyes and left after they were done everyone except me I just stood there unable to move. After everyone else had left Leo asked me if I was ready to go home, I told them to all go on without me I needed to stay here for just a little longer, I needed to be alone with Phoebe one last time, they all understood and went on without me. There looking at this gravestone with Phoebe's name carved in it, I realized that all the love we had once made had turned to memories today and I hit my knees and told God how much I hurt, there's nothing left of my heart, cause today my whole world slipped away, we buried the plans that we made and now I'm alone and afraid, cause living just isn't worth living without her.**_

_**They say that the bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone, I unfortunately knew this all to well. There on my knees I told Phoebe for the last time that I loved her and it hurt me so much to say that, those were the same words I had neglected to tell her the last time I saw her, the words I regretted holding inside. I spoke my final words to Phoebe right then and there, I said all the things that needed to be said, all the things I had held inside for to long and this is what I said: **_

_**Phoebe, you touched my heart you touched my soul, you changed my life and all my goals, love is blind that I knew when my heart was blinded by you. I have kissed your lips and held your hand, I shared your dreams and shared your bed, I know you well I know your smell, I've been addicted to you. As you move on remember me, remember us and all we used to be. I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile, I've watched you sleeping for awhile, I'm the father of your child, and I'd spend a lifetime with you, I know your fears and you know mine, we've had our doubts but now were fine and I love you, I swear that's true, I cannot live without you. I still hold your hand in mine, in mine when I'm asleep. Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend, you have been the one, you have been the one for me, goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend, you have been the one you have been the one for me and now I am so hollow, I'm so hollow…I'm so hollow.**_

_**The fifth and final stage of grief is acceptance that is when you accept the loss and not just try to bear it quietly. You realize that the person is gone that it is not their fault; they didn't leave you on purpose. I say to that whatever, I will never accept the fact that Phoebe is gone, it will never be ok that she died. I'm sorry but I cannot let myself feel that way, I may one day be able to go on with my life but I don't think I will ever accept that it was meant to be.**_

_**As it always does the world continued to spin madly on and everyone seemed to move on or at least try to. It was hard no doubt about it but everyone tends to hide those feelings, not wanting others to be pulled down by their grief, so they hide away in their rooms and cry into their pillows. Weeks went by and January turned into February which brought about Valentines Day, that day was harder then most for me. I never really visited Phoebe's grave after the funeral and all, I just didn't feel like she was there, the only thing there was her body not her spirit, not her soul they were somewhere else, I could only feel those things when I would lay in our bed, when I would walk along the beach, when I looked into your smiling face, and when I was in the mausoleum. **_

_**So, me and Phoebe used to have this little tradition on Valentines Day, we would each write the other one a poem or letter of some kind telling them all the things we held in our hearts. No one else ever knew that we wrote these things, it was something that was shared between just us. On that Valentines Day I wrote a letter to Phoebe just like I had done every single Valentines Day before and when I was finished I didn't take the letter to her grave, I knew she would never get it there instead I placed it in the mausoleum that way she would get it for sure and again it would be only for her eyes. I feel like I should share that letter with you, I think you need to know what I felt on that day so what follows is the letter I gave to her: **_

_**Dear Valentine, **_

_**Come away with me, if I had a day with you and you only, I would enjoy the simple things. The things that, in the end, when time steals the rest away, are the only things we'll remember. I would paddle you across a still lake in a rowboat and read poetry to you until you fall asleep and I would never ever think about the hours. Dear Valentine, if I had one day with you and you only... I would admire every line of your face, every strand of your hair... every graceful movement of your hands or your eyes or your body. If I had one perfect day... don't you see my heart beats only for you. Dear Valentine, these are the things I remember of my love: a warm hand, your warm breath, your warm mouth, your arms around mine. I remember feeling safe, cease-less, like one person, the two of us still, at rest, entwined. I remember how I felt the first time I kissed you; it felt like, the high dive. What do you remember? How will I ever know what was inside your heart? Where did they go? All the things we think and feel but don't say. Dear Valentine, these are the things I never told you, these are the things I need you to know. That I loved you always and my love was so big; it lives still after you're gone. I'd like to tell you that I would do it differently. That if I had one more day I would do everything right. But I know that isn't true. I'd make all the same mistakes. That is except one. I wouldn't say goodbye.**_

_**So there it is my letter to my love and with that being said I think I will end this for now, there is still a lot more to say and this story is far from over but for now I have said enough. Just remember that those we love remain with us…in the whisper of the wind, in a soft rain that falls from Heaven, in each sunrise, in every single star that lights the night sky, and in ever single memory we hold within our hearts.**_

_**Knowing that we all lose one another along the way,**_

**_Cole Turner_**

**_

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well hoped you liked it. Please review..._**


	14. Chapter 14

_**-Chapter 14**__**: Fighting For My Family-**_

_**After Phoebe died a part of me died too, I quit my job at the law firm, well I didn't actually quit I just never went back to work. I spent all my days at the manor just going through the motions of everyday life, even the little things seemed to get harder and harder to do. I ached for Phoebe, I tried so hard to go on with my life, to be there for you but I never could get over the fact that my Phoebe was gone. I wasn't the only one who was having a hard time adjusting to our new lives, Piper and Paige were left asking questions about the future, without Phoebe there was no more power of three, so now what were they to do had their jobs as protectors of the innocent come to an end, no one knew. Leo still had his whitelighter duties to keep him busy, very busy after Phoebe's death, he busied himself so he would not have to watch each of us wallow in our own misery. Because Piper was still a little anxious about the future, Leo tended to spend a lot of time up there, to help answer her questions or to just get away, I don't know. I would love to tell you that things eventually got back to normal but they didn't, in fact they got worse. **_

_**Time went on, months went by as they always do and still we had no ideal who had killed Phoebe. The police and Darryl investigated the murder and we all trusted them to do their job but they never did turn up anything. Four months after Phoebe was killed they were still not any closer to finding out who had killed her. I wanted to do some investigating myself but I was overruled by the rest of the house. Leo said we couldn't go after the killer because he was human not demon so we had to leave it up to the authorities, because if we vanquished the murder that would make us killers too. Piper and Paige seemed to agree with him for the most part but I was not so sure that he was right. Something still told me that there was more to this story than one human killing another it was just to big of a coincidence that Phoebe was the victim and the killer had still not been found, more than that no one at the park seemed to be able to remember anything about that day. It all just didn't fit for me but I didn't know what to do about it or if there was anything I could do. I still felt like it was my fault, that everything that had happened was because of me and then on one day in April all my doubts and suspicions were confirmed. **_

_**On that day in April a letter came in the mail, a letter that would change everything, a letter that would make me do something I swore I would never do again. The mail came about mid morning like it always did and being the only one there I went out to the box and brought it in. Sitting in the living room I began to rifle through the bills and junk mail and then there it was, a plain white envelop no address or return address only the name Belthezar on the outside. That name made me nervous I had not been Belthezar for a long time, this letter had to be from someone in my past they would be the only ones who knew of the demon I used to be. I carefully opened the letter and began to read it ever so slowly not wanting to miss a word of it. This is what that letter looked like:**_

_**Belthezar,**_

_**I know who you are and I know what you did, did you think that your actions would go unpunished. You took something from me and now because I cannot take your life I will take away everything that is precious to you. The little witch was only the beginning, something to grab your attention. Know this everything you love, everything that means anything to you will die and it will all be because of you. I hope you enjoy the last moments you will spend with those you threw away everything for, none of them are safe now…I am sure by now you are dying to know who I am but I won't tell you it is much more fun this way.**_

_**A friend from the past…**_

_**That was it, that was all the letter said, but that was enough I knew now that it was all my fault just like I had thought it was. As I finished the letter my heart was racing and questions were swirling around my head, the most important one was who the hell was this. Panic filled my heart, what had I done, why was this happening, did they know about you, could I keep you safe, all these questions filled my brain, questions I could not answer. I did know one thing for sure whoever had sent this letter it had to be a demon no one else would know of Belthezar. I was not yet sure of what to do but I did know that I would have to do something, I could not sit back and let this demon whoever it was take away everything and everyone I loved.**_

_**As I was starting to figure out what I was going to do Piper and Paige came through the front door. I didn't want them to see the letter, I just knew that they would blame me, which they would be right to do but I couldn't take the chance that they might somehow blame you. So I did the only thing I could I hid the letter in my jacket pocket and vowed never to show it to anyone, no matter what. I asked them to watch you and Wyatt while I went upstairs to figure out what I was going to do. **_

_**Upstairs in mine and Phoebe's bedroom I finally made up my mind I was going to stop whoever this was before they had a chance to hurt anyone else. I still had no ideal who this mysterious letter writer was but I did have some ideal how to find out. I needed to find out who had pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Phoebe, this was not who wrote the letter but I hoped they could help me find out who it was. The course of action that I was about to take would have to be kept secret from everyone else in the house, they would not understand, they would never allow me to do what needed to be done and I wouldn't want them to have to make the decision to go forward with my plan, it was my decision and the blame would lay squarely on my shoulders. I was about to go against everything the charmed ones and Phoebe stood for, I was no longer going to be a spectator on the sidelines waiting to be put into the game, I was about to make my own game a game I could win and a game I might even lose.**_

_**Like I said the first step was to find out who had actually pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Phoebe, was it a demon or a human, I really had no ideal but I would find out. Like I said before I was about to deceive everyone but I was doing it to protect them for the right reasons but I could never let them know that. I needed to get all the information that the police had about the murder you know suspects, eye witness testimony and what not. I could have asked Darryl for the files but I didn't want to have to go through the third degree to get them and I really didn't want him asking questions as to why I needed them, so instead I shimmered into Darryl's office one night got the files, copied them and then returned them to his desk. I guess you could say that I stole them, and in fact that is what I had done but I did it for the right reasons. If Darryl knew that I had the files when it came time for me to do what I had planned on doing they could have held him responsible, trust me it was better this way. **_

_**I began to study the files at the manor during the day while everyone else was off at work or wherever they go during the day. I volunteered to watch the kids so everyone else could go about their business but I really did that so I could be alone, so I could try to figure out who had pulled that trigger. As I studied the files it occurred to me that the police had really not done anything towards solving this case. There were a few witnesses but no one could really describe what the gunman looked like. As I kept reading through all the police jargon I finally saw what I had been searching for, a suspect, a name. David Lawson that was the name the police had, their only suspect but they didn't have enough evidence to bring him in for questioning let alone arrest him, but I wasn't planning on arresting him, the name was all I needed. **_

_**I accidentally left the files out on the table one day and Piper saw them and asked me what they were, I lied I told her they were for a case I was thinking about taking, after all I was still a lawyer, an unemployed lawyer but a lawyer none the less. I don't know if she believed me or not but it seemed to squash any other questions she might have had for the moment anyways. Now I was armed with a name, and thus I began to put my plan into action.**_

_**I had to make sure that this David Lawson was in fact the guy who had pulled the trigger and I had to do this without any one else figuring out what I was doing. I needed to make sure that when I confronted him we were alone, someplace no one would see or hear what I planned to do and most importantly I had to make sure he didn't have time to alert whoever had sent him that I was close. I needed to know everything about this guy and to do that I had to follow him and that is exactly what I did. I followed this guy for two weeks straight, I knew everything about him what he ate, where he lived, I knew that he was a drug addict and I knew where he went to buy his drugs, I am not kidding I knew everything about him. But most importantly I knew that he was the one who had killed my Phoebe, I knew this because I could smell her blood on him, who said demon powers never came in handy, they allowed me to sense things about people things like where they had been and what they had done.**_

_**I suppose that all the time I had been spending out was what first alerted Piper and Leo to what I was doing. They began to ask questions, questions I had no answers for, so I lied to them, told them I was looking for a new job, I told them so many lies I began to forget what I had told them and what I had not. I didn't know it at the time but apparently they were becoming quite suspicious of me, I guess that is understandable I had once been the Source of All Evil and now that Phoebe was gone they thought I had turned back to my old ways. So while I followed the killer they followed me, watched every move I made, but still I didn't know they were there I was too occupied with my own agenda. I tired to keep my two worlds that I had created separate from each other but that become harder and harder to do. I began to feel angry all the time I wanted to just kill this bastard who had taken my Phoebe from me, but I had to wait I had to figure out what was going on, who he was working for. While doing all of that I had to pretend at home that everything was the way it had always been, I had to pretend that I was just living each day as I had before I had to hide all my plans, I had to keep this other life I was living from bleeding into the one I had lived in the past. Nathanial Hawthorne once wrote: No man…for any considerable period…can wear one face to himself...and another to the multitude...without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. That was happening to me I was losing myself in my obsession to find justice for Phoebe and I was falling farther and farther into the darkness of my own soul, but yet there was nothing I could do to stop it, I knew what I had to do, I had to protect everyone I loved, I had to protect them even from myself. **_

_**Like the man with the printing press said, at some point we all have something we just have to do. The gear spins, sometimes the gear gets you what you want; sometimes it pushes it even further away. Either way, you have to respect the machine. This was something I just had to do, right or wrong, good or evil; I just had to do it. So, the day finally came for me to confront Phoebe's killer, this David Lawson. I knew that this day would change everything, how much everything would change I could have never known.**_

_**I was going to confront him around eight or nine that night cause I knew he would be home in his crappy apartment by then, he would have already scored his drugs for the day and would be home alone the rest of the night. But that was during the night, during the day I just simply had to wait and you know how much I hate waiting. Needless to say I was on pins and needles all day, I was so anxious to just get all of this over with. I guess everyone else in the house could feel how anxious I was too because they all just seemed to look at me weird all day, wait not weird they looked at me as if they were suspicious of what I was doing. Piper even tried to get me to tell her what my plans were for the day, I didn't tell her I wouldn't have known how to begin to tell her what I was about to do. Finally, the time was near and I was getting ready to leave, it had felt like forever just waiting around all day. When I went to leave though something happened, something that caught me totally off guard. Piper, Paige and Leo were all waiting for me in the living room, and when I entered the questions really started to fly my way. Where are you going, what are you going to do and a million other questions filled the air. I couldn't answer them; I just couldn't, so I simply said I am going to do something that needs to be done. Apparently that was not enough of an explanation for them; they continued to ask their ridiculous questions. Finally I had enough and I let loose on them and this is what I said, "look sometimes there are just certain things you have to do, no I am not going to tell you what they are, you don't need to know, but you do need to get out of my way and let me go, if I have to I will make you get out of the way." I didn't really mean that, I didn't want to hurt any of them, but I had to go, they had to let me go and they didn't need to follow me. **_

_**H.L. Meneken wrote: Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. And that was exactly what I was going to do, begin slitting throats. So, I shimmered to the killer's apartment, by this time I was becoming quite angry, I could feel it bubbling up inside of me. I knew what I was going to do and I knew that familiar feeling I had felt it most of my life, it is the feeling one gets when they are about to take the life of another. When I appeared out of thin air in front of the killer it had just the effect I was looking for, he was scared really scared. At first he tried to act tough, he told me to get out of his apartment or I would be sorry. Ha, I just laughed in his face, really it was pathetic. Who I was in that moment, well it wasn't really me, it was who I was in all moments like that in my life, cold, calculated, and frankly scary. In fact I even scared myself a little bit, it's scary to reach down into the depths of your self and to find out that what is down there is something you detest but nonetheless it is something that you have to be. So I let the darkness wash over me and I let myself become and I even embraced the demon I was and the demon I used to be. **_

_**At first I tried to play nice, I told this Lawson guy that if he would just tell me who had sent him, because I knew he had not done this on his own, I would make his death quick and easy. But he didn't want to play it that way he continued to deny that he had anything to do with Phoebe's murder. Now the anger took me over all I wanted to do was pull out his heart like he had pulled out mine, but I still needed to know who had sent him. I made my move, I started toward him and of course he tried to run, but he couldn't run from me, I grabbed him by the throat and pinned him up against the wall crushing his windpipe with my hands ever so slowly. I wasn't trying to kill him, well not yet anyways; I just wanted to get some answers. Still, he tried to deny it, tired to deny what he had done. My patience was running thin, so again I asked him who had sent him and this time I let the heat from inside of me come through my hand the hand around his neck, and as his flesh began to burn I felt…well I felt good…I felt strong. He cried out in pain, he cried for me to stop, he screamed for help, his screams brought peace to my heart and I was glad he was suffering, suffering the same way I had suffered after he took my Phoebe away from me. But still he kept his secret, he refused to tell me who had sent him, so I did what I had to do. I produced an athema, you know a knife that demons use, a weapon I had loved when I was a demon…wait was I a demon or am I still a demon…I don't know really.**_

_**I began to cut his arms, still holding one hand firmly around his throat, I tortured him, I cut his arms, superficial cuts at first then my knife began to dig deeper into his flesh. But still he wouldn't tell, so I next cut off one of his ears and he screamed, screamed as if I was murdering him, which I was but I was doing it slowly. Again I told him to just tell me who had sent him and all of this would be over, hell I even lied to him and told him I would let him live, I would just go and leave him there, yeah right like that was going to happen. I guess he believed me or maybe he was in so much pain that he decided that he had had enough, either way he talked, like they always do, the weak they always tell you what you want to hear eventually. **_

_**So, I began my interrogation and the first question I asked him was why, why had he killed Phoebe. He said that he was given two hundred dollars from some guy he had met the night before at a bar, the guy told him to kill Phoebe showed him her picture and everything, he told him if he did it he would be rewarded with anything he wanted, that was why he did it. Ok, I kind of knew that already, but still it felt good to have someone confirm it. Next I asked him who had sent him, who was in charge. He didn't know, well at least that is what he said anyways. I was about to ask him the last question, the only answer left I needed to know, who was the man who gave him the money and just as I began to ask they showed up. Piper, Paige and Leo orbed into this lowlifes apartment.**_

_**There I was holding this guy against the wall my hand around his throat blood everywhere and in my other hand the athema held against his throat. What they must have thought, well I knew what they thought, because as soon as they realized what I was doing they began to try and stop me. At first they wanted to know just what exactly I thought I was doing and I told them I was doing what needed to be done. Then it became a little more heated when they told me this was evil, it was wrong to kill a mortal, that is what demons did and I was no longer a demon. To this I just told them this was not their business, to just go home and leave it be. But of course being good they couldn't do that, but I couldn't let them interfere and that is when Piper realized who the man in my grasp was. I could see it in her eyes she was contemplating whether or not if this was something she wanted to happen and I think she kind of did, but I couldn't let her make that choice, I couldn't let her be tainted by this. That's when Leo said and I quote, "Cole, if you do this, there is no coming back from it, if you take his life then you will be evil, is that what you want, for yourself to go back to that life, what about Amber is that what you want for her to know that her father is evil." At that moment I lost a little of my concentration and my hand slipped from the killers throat, was this what I really wanted, I didn't know. Seeing his chance Dave the killer crawled to hide behind Leo and the others, he kept saying he is trying to kill me, help me. I came back to reality very quickly, I knew this still had to be done and now more than ever I knew why I had to do this. **_

_**I looked them right in the eyes and I told them all of them, Piper, Paige and Leo to go home, to leave it alone, this was going to happen and there was nothing they could do to stop it, it had to be done and it had to be this way. Leo protested saying he was not going to allow me to do this. I had had enough of all of this, why couldn't they just leave, why did they make me do this. I gave one last warning, I said leave now or I will make you leave, you can't stop this, I don't want to hurt you but I will. Still they stayed, so I had to do it, I didn't want to but I had to, I let lose an energy ball aimed at their direction, not trying to hit them just scare them but still they would not leave. That is when Leo said if you want to kill him you are going to have to kill us too. I would never hurt any of them, well on purpose anyways, so instead I grabbed the killer, Dave, and I shimmered me and him out of there, I shimmered us to the mausoleum. **_

_**When we got to the mausoleum I told him no more games give me the name of who gave you the money now. He could see that I meant business because he offered it up so easily, he said Duncan that was his name Duncan. With that I had all I needed from him so I raised my knife to plunge it into his heart when he started to beg and plead for his life, he asked me to show him mercy. What, I couldn't believe what I was hearing mercy, I laughed in his face I told him mercy you want mercy did you show my Phoebe any mercy when you shot her, no and so I will show you none now. And I didn't I plunged my knife into his heart and I felt his life fade from his body and it felt good, I felt satisfied. Almost as soon as I had taken his life Piper, Paige and Leo orbed into the mausoleum and I knew that I had in killing Dave taken myself out of this family.**_

_**Paige was the first to speak, the first to tell me that I had no home to come back to, that I was to leave, that I was evil. I didn't argue I knew what I had done, I knew that I had unleashed a side of me I had kept hidden for a long time, a side that endangered everyone around me. In a way that was my plan all along to make them hate me to make them not care when I left because I was going to leave no matter what but at least this way they would not look for me, they wouldn't care. I did all of this to keep them safe, to keep you safe, because whoever was after me at least this way would not know about this family who had taken me in and would not know about my daughter. I thought that maybe now they would just follow me and in doing this they would never know about you. **_

_**So there it was I had received my walking papers, but that was fine, only I had one more thing to do before I left. I shimmered home, I shimmered to the bedroom where you were sleeping I scooped you up in my arms and I gave you your sippy cup to drink from. The cup of milk that I had made before I left the cup that contained a potion that would bind your powers. Yes, you have powers and yes I took them from you but I had to, there was still a chance that some demon could track your powers and know that you were my daughter and I couldn't take that chance, I loved you to much to let that happen. It was better this way, you can hate me for it if you want but I would do it again. After I gave you your milk I kissed you on the forehead and I said I love you for the last time and then I said goodbye. I shimmered away that night never again to return home. I didn't tell anyone else goodbye there was no point in it, but I knew they would take care of you, they would give you all the things I couldn't and they would be there for you, forever. **_

_**What happened next I kind of knew would happen well I at least planned on it happening. Not long after I left the angel of destiny once again offered the charmed ones the opportunity to become normal and this time they took it. They became just normal humans, with no powers, which was all that was really left for them; there was no point in going on with the charmed ones now that Phoebe was gone. Leo fell from grace not long after that, to join his wife in a normal life, a mortal life, he gave up immortality for her and his family. They bound Wyatt's powers too, eradicating all traces of magic from their lives. With magic gone from the manor it turned into a normal home, with kids and the usual problems not the demon zone it used to be. With everything normal Piper and Leo decided to have another child, a boy Chris was his name I think. How do I know all of this, well I may have been gone but I didn't stop watching, I have always been looking out for you, sneaking glimpses of your life when I could. **_

_**So, now you must be wondering where I went and what I did after the break up of our family. Well, I now had a name didn't I, Duncan, that was the name that began my journey, that began what was to become my life from there on out. The next time I write to you I will tell you all about it, all about what I have been doing, all about how I have lost myself but I have gained the satisfaction of knowing that you are safe and how I have been trying to make sure that you stay safe.**_

_**So in the end, was it all worth it? Jesus Christ, how irreparably changed my life has become. It's always the last days of summer and I've been left out in the cold with no door to get back in. I'll grant you I've had more than my share of poignant moments. Life passes most people by when they're busy making grand plans for it. Throughout my lifetime I've left pieces of my heart here and there and now, there's almost barely enough to stay alive but I force a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent. There are no more white horses or pretty ladies at my door.**_

_**Doing what I thought was best,**_

_**Cole Turner**_


	15. Chapter 15

_**Ok so wow it has been a long time I know sorry but stuff happens. School, work, moving, computer problems, writers block it all just starts to pile up after awhile but I am back in action so to speak. I am going to finish this story really there isn't much left to go so if anyone is still reading or still cares please review and let me know, thanks.**_

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-Chapter 15: Looking into the Abyss- 

_**So I guess now is as good a time as any to explain a few things to you. I am sure you are wondering about all the quotes and stuff I have entwined throughout these letters. Well, the explanation is simple enough, everything you want to say has basically already been said by some one else and they probably said it better. Secondly on that note, I have been spending a lot of time in libraries lately. Demons don't tend to frequent them, I don't know why. But to me they bring a piece to the mind, it's quite and I am able to think maybe not such a good thing really. Reading all of these books and stuff is just a way for me to search for some kind of answer as to why I am here on this earth at all, to give me some kind of perspective on the world to learn, to understand, to relate. And I have learned one thing through all of this studying and that is this, we are both good and evil, we are both hero and villain we are all made up of these things and we all have the potential to do good or to do harm it is the choices we make that determine how others will see us. On that note, I guess I should get back to the story…**_

_**Joseph Conrad once wrote, "the belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary, man alone is quite capable of every wickedness." That sure is the truth let me tell you, I have seen quite a lot in my time and I know that demons and evil beings come and go but the wickedness of man is an eternal force. Think about it you know or at least expect for a demon to be wicked and cause pain but when a man does it, it creeps up on you and hits you right in the gut and takes your breath away because you trusted them, didn't expect it but it is the ones we live with and love and should know who elude us. Where is this going, I don't really know just some rambling thoughts I guess but it does seem to be poignant considering all of the wickedness I have seen and brought to the ones who I loved and the wickedness in turn that has been thrown my way by the ones who loved me. **_

_**Duncan right that was the name remember, well I had that name and thus I began my search for this new target. That is what I like to refer to them as now they are all just targets this way I don't have to worry about getting to personal with it; it is harder to do what is needed to be done when you give the enemy a face and a personality. It really doesn't matter anymore what their names are they are just simply steps in the way to where I need to go.**_

_**So Duncan right, I found out what bar it was that he had his meeting with Dave and so there I went to confront him. I walked in and sit right down in the corner so as to have clear sight of everything and everyone in the room and from there I just watched and listened. I didn't have to wait to long because about ten minutes later I heard one of the bartenders talking to what looked like some kind of boss type, he referred to him as Duncan so I knew I was in the right place. I saw Duncan go into the back room some kind of storage room or something, so I knew my chance to confront him was now. Shimmering in behind some boxes concealed from sight I again scanned the room not taking any chances that he wasn't alone.**_

_**It was a good thing I didn't just shimmer in right on top of him because he sure as hell wasn't alone. There he was in a heated conversation with two other gentlemen, but they weren't gentlemen at all I could sense their aura they were definitely demons but then why hadn't I sensed that from Duncan again something that just now seemed to register in my mind. I didn't have to wait long for that answer because the demons began to threaten Duncan apparently there had been some kind of deal with the devil so to speak that had been made between them. **_

_**This deal consisted of Duncan being able to find someone to kill Phoebe which he had done but he was also supposed to find out who else was is my life that I cared about, this information apparently he didn't have. Which led to the confrontation I was now witnessing. I tell you what this frustrated me to no end demons I can handle but why the hell were there so many humans involved in this mess. Do they not realize making deals with the devil never brings you what you want, how could they sacrifice others to gain something in return, isn't man supposed to be better than this, is this what the charmed ones and my Phoebe sacrificed their lives for everyday, really it makes me sick and I am a demon.**_

_**I didn't recognize these demons so going after them was out of the question, I had to deal with this Duncan first anyways, I needed to know what he knew exactly and I needed to know the names of the demons he was working with. I can tell you this though I knew that these demons were not the mastermind behind this whole demented game, they were just low level demons, messengers of the real mastermind. **_

_**So, I did as I had done before I followed Duncan, I followed him home, I followed him to work, I followed him for days. I always thought it was best do your homework to be prepared to know more about the other guy than he does about you, this way you are in control. I have been called a lot of thing in my lifetime but stupid was never one of them; there is a reason why I climbed to the top of demondom so quickly. **_

_**So I now knew why Duncan had struck this deal with the devil, it was simply for money. His family was broke with no way out of debt and he saw the perfect opportunity or so he thought to get out of the hole, basically he saw an easy way out. But we all know nothing is that simple or easy, there is always some kind of catch and this catch was having to deal with me. I learned his routine and decided my best opportunity to strike was when he came home for lunch, because that was when he was completely alone inside of his home. Now, all that was left was for me to get my answers and I can promise you this I get answers like no one else.**_

_**I would like to say this was easy, but it wasn't I kind of felt bad for having to do what needed to be done. You see this man had a family, a wife and a son he wasn't just some dirt bag low life but he had a home, a car and everything, I mean he had a real life. Which makes this all that much harder to understand and it makes it a lot harder to tell you the rest of this story. But, I will, that is what I said I would do, I promised to tell you the truth even if it does make you hate me, I am not willing to lie to you to make you forgive me, I don't expect it and I think you need to know the absolute truth. At least this way you won't have any fairytale images of who your father was or is, I am not some crusader on a voyage of justice I am simply a man well at least mostly a man who is out for revenge who seeks to punish all of those who have undertaken this mission to ruin my life and my family. When it comes down to it keeping this family safe, my family safe I would do anything and if it meant breaking Duncan's family apart so be it.**_

_**It was Tuesday I think, don't really know and it doesn't really matter when I decided the time was right to strike. So, there I was sitting in this fleabag motel where I had rented a room for the night preparing myself to do what I had to, when a wave of guilt did wash over me and a cold chill ran down my spine and for a spilt second I could of swore I heard Phoebe's voice. Nah, I shook it off it had to be the wind or something, it couldn't be Phoebe she was dead. Walking out of the room I took one last glimpse into the mirror and that is when I saw it, my face but it wasn't me at all or maybe it was just simply the real me, maybe who I had been when I was with Phoebe was the illusion, I don't know anymore it is all so confusing. Anyways I couldn't take it, that image reflecting back at me telling me screaming at me that this wasn't right, so I smashed it, I smashed that mirror with my fist and it felt good, I sent that image of myself shattering to the floor and with it everything human that was left inside of me. With that I was gone.**_

_**I shimmered in right behind of Duncan who was sitting at his kitchen table enjoying his turkey sandwich. Instantly I noticed that something wasn't right, why did he not scare or run or at the very least scream. No, instead he turned around slowly and that is when I saw the pistol caressed by his hand with his finger hugging the trigger. Damn he must have expected me or was at least scared of something because he sure as hell was prepared for a visitor. I didn't have time to think of much else because before I could open my mouth a shot rang out and a flash filled the room; the bastard shot me in the chest. It surprised the hell out of me and it hurt too. **_

_**Remember the whole thing about being invincible well it is not invincible it is unvaquishable pain I still feel and I can still be hurt and dam it this hurt. Funny but all I could think of at that moment was Leo sometime before warning me that I may be unvaquisable but I sure wasn't invincible. Leo was always right. I felt the hot steel go through my flesh, the bone break and my guts and insides explode, is this how Phoebe felt when she was shot, God I hope not I hope she went to fast to feel any of this. Unfortunately not being able to die meant that I had to endure the pain for sometime. Lying on the floor blood pouring out of my chest I had really put aside all the doubts I had before, this guy was definitely going to die now. After a few more moments the demon healing kicked in and I was able to get back on my feet. It felt like I was lying on the floor forever but it must have been only a short few seconds cause Duncan was still standing over me and the gun still had the freshly fired smoke coming out of it.**_

_**I got up and calmly said lets try this again shall we. He started to fire again but that wasn't going to happen, no thank you I didn't need another bullet hole in me, so I quickly used some telekinesis power I had and pulled the gun out of his grasp. He was frozen in fear so I began my approach I had him right where I wanted him. **_

_**Grabbing him by his shirt collar I flung him up against the wall, quite forcibly just to make sure he knew I meant business. Then I asked him all the questions I had to ask, what did he know about my family, what had he told the demons about us, and who exactly were these demons he was working with. Surprisingly he actually answered all of my questions almost like he was confessing his sins before being put to death, washing away his conscious so he could start the afterlife with a clean slate I guess. **_

_**He told me he knew who the charmed ones were and he knew about Leo and about my daughter but he hadn't told the demons about them, well they knew who the charmed ones were but they didn't know about you. I asked him why he would do that and he said he had a family and would do anything to protect them and thus couldn't bring about the death of a child who was the same age as his son. Well, this man might have some redempting quality after all, but not enough to forgive everything, he had still been responsible for Phoebe's death. Finally, he answered my last question about the demons they were low level grunts working for someone higher up the food chain. Their names weren't that important I didn't care what they called themselves. Duncan did however tell me how to meet them apparently he was supposed to meet them the next day to relay information he had found out or they were going to kill his family. **_

_**I told him that I would met them instead and asked if anyone else knew about his deal and about his family, he said no one else knew just the two of them. So, I did what I thought was right I told him I would take care of the demons and make sure his family didn't have to pay for his mistakes, by killing the demons I would essentially be eliminating the only ones who knew the identity of his family. I also promised him that I would look in on his family and protect them from any other demons that came calling. It was my way of repaying him for keeping quite about my daughter.**_

_**I would like to say that is the end of this story but it isn't I still had to deal with Duncan himself, his family may of not had to pay for his mistakes but he surely did. I know, it seems a little heartless but was it any less heartless for him to have my Phoebe killed, your mother killed I don't think so. I did it quickly so as to not make him suffer, one quick thrust of an athema to his heart was all it took and his life quickly left his body. It was kind of weird though I no longer felt the satisfaction of killing I had before, actually I really didn't feel anything at all not anger, or sadness, or happiness, nothing. I guess I was really dead inside now, I felt like I was swirling into the abyss never to reemerge at least not the same person I was before, it is true when you look long into the abyss the abyss looks long into you, I could feel it consume me and take away what was left of who I was. After Duncan was dead I took his body away his kid didn't need to see that, I cleaned up his kitchen so as to look like nothing had happened, I made it seem like he had just left or maybe never came home at all. His body I burned with my powers so no trace was left.**_

_**Then as soon as it was all over I began to go on to the task at hand preparing for my meeting with the two demons who had struck the deal, I had to prepare getting information from a demon is much harder than getting it from a human. I began my journey of revenge here and here is where I will stop for now. Let me warn you though revenge is not something that one should take upon their selves without being willing to pay the price. Confucius warned us that, "before you embark upon a journey or revenge; dig two graves." **_

_**I hope this has not left you hating yourself because you cannot be held accountable for my actions they are mine alone to bear punishment for. This was my war to fight and it was my hands that were stained with the blood of others. Again I implore that you at least know why I have done this, I did this because I wanted you to have peace to be able to grow up and not worry about looking over your shoulder for the unknown harm that may be coming your way. I did this because I just couldn't handle losing you the same way I lost your mother, not in some war that was created by those looking for me, hunting me. Thomas Paine said, "If there must be trouble let it be in my day, so that my child may have peace," this is all I want for you, peace.**_

_**Our life is made by the death of others,**_

_**Cole Turner

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**_Again please review it helps boost my self esteem, just kidding it does make me feel good though and I hope that everyone doesn't hate Cole after this, you know he just had to do it, I told you in the begining this was not a happy story. 


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N: Well, here is another chapter hope you like it. Special thanks to Joleca for all her wonderful reviews which without I would probably not still be writing this story. Again big thanks and please read and review this chapter.

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-Chapter 16: Good and Evil-**_

_**During the time between disposing of the body and waiting to meet with the demons I tried to get some rest. So, I checked into some low rent hotel room, you know the ones that you pay for by the hour. I was meaning to rest, I needed sleep, I hadn't sleep in a really long time and my body ached practically begging for sleep. But sleep didn't come instead I laid there on the bed staring at the ceiling pondering my thoughts and trying to justify all of this mess. A hundred thoughts whirling around my head at once was just too much to handle so I reached for the liquor I had picked up the day before and began to try and drink my mind numb. But this didn't work it just made me reflect that much more and in the haziness of my mind I began again to try to understand this whole situation.**_

_**This is what I know; for any success, boldness is required but was I really willing to do this, to go against all that Phoebe had taught me about being good. I certainly wasn't trying to be bad or evil, but was that not what I had become was I not killing others…this is evil right. I don't really know, these feelings were all new to me I had killed before, why was this so hard now, was it that somewhere along the way I had grown a conscious.**_

_**Maybe all this second guessing of myself was just because I was timid, fearful of the consequences of what had been done and what was left to do. Phoebe had been taken from me, my family had been left behind and my daughter would never know who I was, I felt like I myself was being murdered, murdered slowly by all the pressures of life piling up on top of me. Maybe I wasn't actually being killed but is murder by slow steady pressure any less murder than a quick merciful knife thrust? **_

_**Could this endeavor leave me a different person in the end, I did not know, I could not know until it was over and this worried me the most. If I wasn't the same when this was all over I knew I couldn't come back home, I could never see you again. I tried not to think about this to much, I really tired to push all the thoughts out of my head, if I had to think about this I might not be able to do it. **_

_**I don't know how other people are inside all different and alike at the same time. I can only guess. But I do know how I will squirm and wiggle to avoid a hurtful truth and, when finally there is no choice, will put it off, hoping it will go away. Do other people say primly, "I'll think about that tomorrow when I am rested," and then draw on a hoped for future or an edited past like a child playing with violence against the inevitability of bedtime?**_

_**But I couldn't put it off, my mind wouldn't let me, it insisted that this had to be pondered now. That is when I started asking myself if I should feel guilty for all the lives that I took and the bigger question was it ok to abolish all of the rules of right and wrong. Before when I was simply a demon this wouldn't have weighed on my mind, rules wouldn't have mattered, why did it matter now.**_

_**Well, I don't feel guilt for all of the demon lives that I took in the past. It was simply that I had grown unused to killing things. A man can get used to anything. Slaughtering or undertaking or even execution; rack and pincers must be just a job when one gets used to it. Men can get used to anything, but it takes time. There's something desirable about anything you're used to as opposed to something you're not.**_

_**I suppose for a limited time I abolished all the rules, not just some of them. But isn't it reasonable to assume that once the objective has been reached, could the rules not all be reassumed? Why then, not make it all out war in pursuit of peace? And if I should put the rules aside for a time, I knew I would wear scars but would they be any worse than the scars of failure (the failure to save Phoebe, the failure to keep my family together) that I was wearing now? To be alive at all is to have scars. The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up still there will be a scar left behind. It could be done because it had to be done. But if I opened up that door, could I ever get it closed? I did not know. I could not know until I had opened it.**_

_**I wish I knew the nature of night thoughts? They're close kin to dreams. Sometimes I can direct them, and other times they take their head and come rushing over me like strong, unmanaged horses. **_

_**Somewhere along the way in all of this deep thought I drifted off to sleep. This was not a peaceful sleep I hadn't had one of those in quite some time. No, instead my dreams were of bodies broken, screams of pain, and pleas of mercy, these were all images of the lives I had taken back in my demon days, back before I had met Phoebe. Flashes of the people I had killed passed through my mind like an old movie, but instead of actually being myself in this dream I was a bystander unable to do anything but watch, I had to sit and watch all I had done, all the pain I had caused. It is weird though in dreams like this I do not become bothered I guess it is simply for the fact that I know it has happened already and nothing can be done to change it. **_

_**It has happened to me before that in time of great crisis or danger I have stepped out and apart and as an interested stranger watched myself, my movements and my mind, but immune to the emotions of the thing observed. These dreams are unsettling in themselves but I had had them before, many times in fact. Unfortunately a super abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares. The nightmare that came after this dream was what really shook me the most. **_

_**People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all. I can explain my dream easily enough, but that doesn't make it any less frightening.**_

_**The dream started out pleasant enough with images of mine and Phoebe's relationship flashing before my eyes. All the best times we shared together, images of a happy couple, a happy life played in front of my eyes. I reached out to touch her hoping to get a small feeling of completeness that had been missing since she had been gone and then suddenly the seen flashed to Phoebe lying on the cold concrete of the park her chest oozing blood from the bullet wound. Blood pouring out everywhere causing a crimson river to run across the ground. **_

_**Then another flash of light hit my eyes causing the scene to change once again. This time it was images of mine and Phoebe's relationship that passed before my eyes again but not the happy ones. All the times I had lied to her, the times I had made her cry all the bad things that ever happened to us flashed by like lights on the highway. I tried to cover my eyes with my hands to protect myself against the memories but I couldn't move, I was frozen in time and just as fast as they had come they were gone.**_

_**Then suddenly the ground gave way and I was falling down into the dark abyss. Scratching and clawing to reach out of the darkness but I couldn't, I just kept tumbling down into the everlasting darkness. It was like the darkness would never end, I felt it creeping up on me trying to swallow me whole but I couldn't fight it, I just kept falling. I could hear voices surrounding me but they were in the distance I couldn't quite make out what they were saying but they sounded strangely familiar. As I fell further down into the abyss the voices began to get clearer and finally I could recognize them. **_

_**They were the voices of Piper, Paige, Leo and even Prue. They kept saying all the things I had heard from them before, screaming in my head your evil, you'll always be evil and you can't change that, once a demon always a demon, that's what they said. Every time the voices spoke the words pounded into my body causing me to fall even faster. Finally the voices faded into the abyss leaving me alone to fall into the darkness. **_

_**When I thought I couldn't fall any faster or possibly fall any farther the ground jumped up and hit me like a bug hitting the windshield of a car. The darkness faded out replaced with the cold damp settings of the mausoleum. I was battered and bruised from the fall, blood stared to fall from my mouth, and I could taste its bitterness. I thought I was alone but suddenly another voice came rushing over me, I recognized it instantly it was Phoebe, she was crying, but between her sobs I could hear her trying to say something but I couldn't quite make it out. **_

_**There she was sitting on the floor her head cupped in her hands staring downward while tears streamed down her beautiful face. My heart skipped a beat and my breath jumped up into my throat when I saw her sitting there. I ran over to gather her up into my arms and in someway take away her pain. But as soon as I bent down to touch her she jumped up in fear and said get away from me. I couldn't believe it, what had I done, but she just kept crying and fear was all over her face. Eventually, I worked up enough courage to ask the question I really was trying to avoid, why was she scared of me.**_

_**And that is when she crushed my spirit and confirmed my worst nightmare she said, "Cole, your evil, what you are doing is evil, you are killing people." **_

_**I pleaded with her to understand, "I am doing this for you, I am trying to make things right, to make them better for our daughter."**_

"_**Do you think this is making things better what makes you any different from the people who killed me?" That's what she asked me and for a second I didn't really have an answer for her.**_

_**Finally I answered her the only way I knew how, "they have something to lose." That was true I had already lost everything that was important to me.**_

_**Silence filled the room and after a long pause she looked up at me with those beautiful brown eyes and said, "Don't do this for me, don't lose yourself because of some crazy notion of duty to me, please don't go through with this I don't want you to get hurt."**_

_**I wasn't, I mean I did feel like I had to sit things right but not just for her but for you too. I had to make things safe again. She didn't know this was all my fault, she didn't know the dangers I had unleashed into your life, she just didn't understand, she never did when it came to things like this.**_

_**I told her, "Phoebe I would do almost anything for you, but I will not be a coward for you please don't ask me to." Seems like I had said that before to her I couldn't remember.**_

"_**Cole this will change you and it won't be for the better are you really prepared to lose your soul for this." That's what she said, but had I not already lost my soul, it was gone when she was taken from me. What did a soul matter to me now anyways, its not like my soul would ever get to reconnect with hers, no that was something I could only dream of, a life of peace with Phoebe for eternity was only just a dream, an unreachable dream.**_

_**Then she said, "Cole this will kill you if you let it, it will eat away at your insides until there is nothing good left in you, until there is nothing left at all. There are worse things than being dead; walking around alive but feeling nothing is a worse fate than death." **_

_**To this I simply replied, "Cole Turner is dead already he died the day you were taken away from me, he has not lived since that moment in time, I am not him anymore."**_

_**Again she pleaded, "Cole listen to me, you can't change the fact that I am dead and you can't change the fact that evil exist in this world, it is just something you are going to have to accept."**_

_**I said, "Phoebe I know this world is a dangerous place, but it is not because of those who do evil, it is because of those who look on and do nothing." **_

_**With that statement she started to vanish right in front of my eyes. I tried to reach out to hold her for just one more minute, just one more second, but I couldn't stop her. As she faded into nothingness I heard her say, "Go with God, Cole." And my simple reply was, "God's going to sit this one out." With that she was gone vanished from my life and my dreams. **_

_**I shot up from the bed chills running down my spine and sweat pouring out of my body. Right then and there I realized that this would be the nightmare of my life, to be so close to happiness and have it continually ripped out of my grasp. To be judged, hated and feared by others the ones I thought would understand, to feel like I had no place in this world and to know it was my own fault. I had done all of those things, it wasn't like someone else made me do them, circumstances may have made them necessary but it was still me who made the choice. **_

_**I had done evil, I had been evil and I was still evil, a different kind of evil but evil still the same. I always tried to do the right things but maybe it wasn't always for the right reasons or maybe I just didn't go about it the same way everyone thought I should.**_

_**Again in the loneliness of that room my mind started to drift into thoughts about it all. I had thought I could put a process in motion and control it at every turn…even stop it when I wanted to. And now the frightening conviction grew in me that such a process may become a thing in itself, a person almost, having its own ends and means and quite independent of its creator. And another troublesome thought came in. Did I really start it, or did I simply not resist it? I may have been the mover, but was I not also the moved? Once on the long street, there seemed to be no crossroads, no forked paths, and no choice.**_

_**We are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water? Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fenced, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both good and evil, since we invented them.**_

_**So, there it is sorry there was not much more to this letter than the ramblings of a sad, lonely man but it felt right to write it all down. Someway maybe you can learn by my mistakes and not lose everything like I have done. With all of that said I will just leave you with these last ramblings or maybe some kind of wisdom I can impart upon your life.**_

_**A child may ask, "What is the world's story about?" And a grown man or woman may wonder, "What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we're at it, what's the story about?" I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were wrap and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountains, on economy and manners. **_

_**There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well-or ill? And in our time, when a man dies if he has had wealth and influence and power and all the vestments that arouse envy, and after the living take stock of the dead man's property and his eminence and works and monuments the question is still there: Was his life good or was it evil? Envies are gone, and the measuring stick is: "Was he loved or was he hated? Is his death felt as a loss or does a kind of joy come of it?" **_

_**In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.**_

_**We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue is immortal. Vice has always had a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is. **_

_**The torture of a bad conscious is the hell of a living soul,**_

_**Cole Turner**_

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**_A/N: Ok well not really a whole lot to this chapter mainly just what Cole is thinking but this is sitting us up for a lot of action in the next couple of chapters and finally the ending. Please read and review..._**


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